


International

by Iiteru



Category: NCT (Band), NCT Dream, Neo Culture Technology
Genre: Adventure, Chocolate Fountain, Exchange Student AU, First Kiss, First Love, Fluff, High School AU, I can write better but you know what, Jaemin's family is a hosting family, Jeno's family is a hosting family, Johnny works at a diner, Lucas was a part of dream, M/M, Mark's sexuality is confusing, Nomin are oblivious, Slow Burn, Ten and Taeyong own a dance studio, but instead chensung get together, jisung's whipped for chenle, kitchen fires, minor nomin, nct dream hq, nct dream plan to get nomin together, polar bear onesie, soft, the dream boys all have a lunch table, the exchange student au nobody asked for but I delivered anyway, this is a mess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-17 02:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14178546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iiteru/pseuds/Iiteru
Summary: Jisung Park had two things on his mind as far as school was concerned: Keeping up his grades so that he didn’t get grounded, and dance. The last thing that he wanted was to fall in love in high school... But there's a golden-haired exchange student with a really loud laugh and a super cute smile that's in his life now and he's pretty sure he's going to do just that.-Or: NCT Dream try to get Nomin together but instead Chensung end up falling for each other in the process.(( ON HOLD UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE ))





	1. Burgers and Random Suggestions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first chapter is always the worst written, I'm finding. I went through this again and tweaked some stuff, but it's just going to have to stay like this because I'm not in the mood to completely rewrite it all. The rest are fine, but I'm still very indifferent about this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: 4-15: Thank you all so much for the overwhelming amounts of support for this fic! I'm genuinely touched, it means so much to me to know how many people like my work :,)
> 
> As usual, feel free to leave a Kudos or shoot me a comment if you enjoy/ed the story. I'm not sure how far I'm going to go with this, but I do know this fic is going to be pretty long? I'm probably going to guess it's going to be around 50,000 words ? It's going to be a lot. Oh well. We need more NCT Dream fics.

Summertime was coming to an end once again in Seoul. With it, the unfortunate end of the vacationing season for students across the country and the world. The end of summer, the dog days one might call them, were the days that high school students seemed to dread the most; The days leading up to the return of early morning alarm clocks and terrible cafeteria food. They were the days where you knew that summer was ending, the days where you would do anything to cling to the remaining summer nights and freedom, and they were just about the worst thing in existence. For Jisung, summer depression had already kicked in long before the dog days had even started. It seemed for the entire last week of his vacation, he had tried to do anything and everything out there to hold onto the lack of responsibility. 

Upon popular demand in Jisung’s friend group, the “Dreamies” as they were called by the girl students that oggled over their good looks and high aspirations, the boys had all met up at a local American burger place. Mark, the oldest in the group, had originally come from Canada and had been the one to get everyone in the group hooked on greasy hamburger buns and way-too-thick milkshakes. Ever since they started drinking them, they hadn’t been able to go back. It was a common occurrence for the boys to meet up at "Susan's Burgers", though they had yet to meet a woman named Susan that worked there, and they had made it into a location they all made an effort to go to before an event or to celebrate something that had happened. That day, however, was neither. It was the Friday before school would start back up, and the morale of everyone at their table in the corner was down due to the fact they'd all be starting yet another year at school and kissing summer goodbye in a matter of days.

“I can’t believe that we’re going back to school already.” Donghyuck spoke up as he bit into his burger. “I feel like we literally just got out.” 

“Oh, we did. I think the school is just using time travel to mess with our minds.” Jaemin snickered. 

Jisung frowned and dragged another fry through the blob of ketchup on his plate. “Right? And to top it all off, It sucks that you guys are graduating this year.” He pointed the fry at Mark and Renjun. The two boys were in their senior year at the high school and would be leaving it behind in no time. It was ridiculous how quick the time had flown by. While they would be gone in the year to follow, Jisung, on the other hand, was just going back for his second year at the school. 

“Ah, yeah. I keep forgetting about that.” Renjun sighed. “Honestly, I’m not going to miss high school. It was literally terrible.” 

“Oh come on, we’ve still got another year.” Mark laughed, and elbowed him gently. “Besides, we’ve got the rest of Dream to keep it interesting.”

Renjun smiled and nudged him back as he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and they're all a bunch of dorks.” 

Jaemin gasped dramatically and held a hand over his heart. “Dorks?” He echoed, which earned bright laughter from Jeno and Donhyuck. Before they knew it, they were all laughing, hearts lifted from the conversation and doom of the upcoming school year. 

The conversations went on for awhile, topics mingling between what Mark and Renjun were probably going to pursue after high school to what they all wanted to accomplish this coming school year. Jaemin made it his personal goal to high five every single freshman he saw in the hallway on the first day of school while everyone else had more practical things like maintaining gpas and applying for opportunities they've had their eyes on. However, the one thing that really brought Jisung’s attention completely away from how depressingly awesome the school year was going to be was when Jeno spoke up and said “Have you heard about the new kid? A new exchange student.” 

All of the boys exchanged glances, eyebrows raised as the question bounced off their faces. “There’s a new kid?” 

“ooh, yeah, I think I remember you telling me about this.” Renjun nodded. “Isn’t he from China or something like that?” 

Jeno nodded in confirmation. “Yeah, he’s from China. Chen something is his name… I don’t know much more than that. Well, and that he’s a few months older than Jisung.” 

Jisung raised an eyebrow. “Wait, so is he in the same year as me?” 

“Probably." 

Jisung let his mind process that. Their school wasn’t exactly the easiest to get into and everyone that had a place on the yearly roster had worked hard to get there. Their exchange and transfer programs were both really complicated things that made being accepted into the school hard and even more of something to be commended on. Renjun and Mark were the only two in the group, or school, even, that Jisung knew of that currently were attending the school on the exchange student program. They both lived together with Jeno whose parents served as a host family for the boys while they attended school. It got chaotic sometimes with those three living under the same roof, but everyone knew that Jeno and his family wouldn’t have traded it for the world. 

“Do you know who he’s staying with?” Jaemin asked. “Wait, how do you even know about him?” 

“The email.” Jeno answered simply. When nobody’s questioning looks resided, he sighed and elaborated. “My family got an email from the school: Since we’re one of the families that have hosted students, we were informed about him and we were one of the families they asked to see if we would let him stay with us.” 

“And? Are you going to?” 

Jeno shrugged. “I really don’t know, honestly. I know my family would love to and all, but can we really handle having another kid under our roof?” 

“I mean, I speak Chinese.” Renjun added, though it was obvious. “If his Korean isn’t the best, I can probably help him out with it if he’s living with us. Or, you know, like, we can relate to each other because we’re both in similar positions.” 

The black haired boy sighed and combed his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know- I just really hope we can find him a good host family. I don’t know if any of you guys would be interested in hosting him..?” 

Everyone exchanged looks. There was a silence that set in between everyone and Jeno nodded after a moment. 

“Or… Not. But I’m going to ask them tonight or something. If they say no, then I’m going to have to tell them to find someone else to do it and I really, really, don’t want him getting stuck with a bad host family. Or worse… What if they don’t find him one and he can’t even come down?” 

Jisung had never really thought about that before. If someone didn’t find a host family then they couldn’t come down? That would be terrible. Especially after he was accepted to such a high-end school in such a wonderful area. 

“I don’t know… But... “ 

“Maybe I can take him in?” Jaemin offered. “I mean. We do get a little lonely at my house sometimes.” 

“The hell do you mean you get lonely? Kun lives with you.” 

Kun was also a Chinese boy who had gone through the whole hosting process when he was in high school. He had just started chasing after his dreams and called on Jaemin’s family to help him out a little bit. He was leaving soon, however, and planned to move in with his boyfriend they called WinWin in the springtime The Dream boys loved hanging out with Kun. There was a time during the summer they had all piled into Jaemin’s kitchen and spent the night making homemade pizza and other weird dishes from around the world. None of them turned out good, but it was one of Jisung’s favorite memories from that summer. 

Jaemin shrugged. “You can always use another friend.” 

Jisung tapped his fingers on the table. “Maybe I could see if my family would be able to host him?” It was a wild suggestion, one he himself was surprised even came from his mouth. He knew his mother wouldn’t want a random boy living with them in their house, why did he even suggest it? Sure, they had plenty of space and had a whole empty room that could’ve easily been used as a bedroom, but it wasn’t like his mother would just open her doors to some kid from China that needed a place to stay… Right? It didn’t matter the circumstance, right? Regardless, Jeno practically beamed at the suggestion. 

“That’s a great idea!” He smiled, and snapped. “Promise you’ll talk to her and then get back to me?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I promise. But I doubt she’ll say yes.” 

“I’ll ask, too.” Jaemin chimed. “Just in case.” 

The rest of their meetup flew by before any of them knew it and in no time the boys had all dispersed on their own separate ways. Their pre-school meetup had ended, and that was that. The school year, as far as Jisung was concerned, had basically started then and there. 

Jisung couldn’t stop thinking about the situation he had put himself into on the way home: A Chinese boy that needed a place to stay and a family to take care of him while he attended school. Who was the boy, he wondered? What kind of talent did he have that got him into their school? What made this boy, this mysterious “Chen-something” boy, such a good student that he was being sent over to Korea for schooling? What was his purpose? His reason? 

Money, he figured. It was increasingly common for parents with full wallets and deep pockets to send their children away to schools across the world to learn. Most were sent to American schools, however… So Jisung was beyond interested. Renjun and Mark had been sent to Korea because of their love for the culture and music industry… What was this kid’s story going to be? 

Jisung snuck his way up to his room when he got home, quiet so as not to disturb either of his parents on the rare occasion that both, or either, were home. He pulled his computer from his desk and onto his lap as he collapsed back onto his bed and began to type and google anything and everything he could about hosting an exchange student. 


	2. Jeno's Emo and Jaemin Has a Surprise

The next day, Jisung made the walk over to Jeno’s house. 

A positive about the group was that everyone lived within walking distance from one another; Because of that, it wasn’t uncommon to wake up and find one of your friends crashed on your couch watching television or rummaging through the refrigerator. Jisung himself was guilty of it, as was everyone else at one point or another. 

Exhaustion stung his eyes and he blinked sleepily. His mouth felt dry and he sipped from his water bottle as he trekked on, making a mental note that what he did probably wasn't the best idea. It was his own fault for staying up so late and he’d spent the entire evening on the computer, article after article being read top to bottom about exchange students: The horror stories, success stories, benefits, the dangers. You name it, he probably read about it. He had even brought his dinner up to his room to continue reading, completely and utterly consumed by his drive to gain information. It was his own fault he was exhausted, and part of him didn’t regret it. At the end of all of that, he had made a conclusive decision: He was going to make his family the host family for this mystery Chinese boy if it was the last thing he did. 

It wasn't even so much that he was genuinely concerned about the guy or that he had a place to stay, though that was part of it, it was more so that he liked the idea of having another teenager in the house that he could relate to and bring into Dream. It might've been selfish, sure, but it would make his limited time at home even just a little bit more entertaining. Not that he usually was there a lot, he preferred his free time spent in a studio.

He knocked on the door to Jeno’s house once he got there. It was a nice place, large in all the right places and deceivingly small in others. Jeno’s was the second most popular house to visit among the Dream members, right after Jaemin's, and for very good reason. His parents were super kind to all of the boys and, whenever you visited Jeno’s, Mark and Renjun were already there. There was a huge room that the boys had completely decked out to be their own and they had spent so many hours in it that summer watching bad movies and playing Just Dance on the Wii. The Dream "headquarters", or "HQ" as they called it, was most of the time where they met up during the school week if they couldn't go out to eat, large beanbags and sticky-note covered walls a second home for everyone. If you needed a place to relax, Jeno's was always open. Every member had a spare key to the house that Jeno had secretively handed out to each of them once the room was finished. It was a shocker that Jeno's parents hadn't put two in two together when some days they knew for sure the door was locked when they left and then suddenly there were kids that had let themselves in, sometimes even at ungodly hours of the morning. If they did have any suspicion, they never brought it up, and the boys weren't going to pressure them into it. He knocked again after there was no response and waited about ten seconds before Renjun's face appeared and he opened the door. He yelled back into the house that Jisung had showed up over his shoulder. 

“Jeno’s been playing video games in his room literally since he woke up this morning.” Renjun explained as he shut the door behind Jisung. “I seriously don’t think I’ve ever seen him going at it so hard. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't even hear me.” 

Jisung laughed at that. Jeno wasn’t exactly the big gaming type among his friends even though he had a huge setup in his room. They always kicked his ass in COD when they played together. Jeno always acted like he wasn’t mad about it even though it was obvious that it got to him. He preferred his victories with Fortnite matches played at three am, anyway. “Any clue why?” 

Renjun shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I don’t know, he just seems really stressed out. His parents told him some bad new this morning, so that might have to do with it.” 

Jisung raised an eyebrow and followed Renjun back into the house as they walked to Jeno’s room. Baby pictures of Jeno decorated them and smiled at the two of them from either side, framed and hung up as the true mark of any proud parent. “What happened?” 

“Well, basically they had a little bit of an argument.” Renjun frowned as he remembered. “Jeno asked if they could host and stuff and they flipped out about the cost of hosting us two already and that they don’t ‘even remotely have the room to host another kid under the roof’ since we won't give up HQ by any means, even though Jeno offered it up. Jeno’s probably stressing himself out like crazy over there.” 

Jisung too. It stung a little bit that Jeno was willing to get rid of HQ just to host another student. He understood of course, but they had all poured their hearts into the making of that room. It was one of the last things they did with Yukhei before he graduated and one of Jisung's favorite memories with the boys as a whole. HQ meant everything to him, meant everything to the entire group. Why would Jeno be willing to even suggest that he would give up something so special?

Renjun pulled open the door to Jeno’s room. It revealed the dark haired boy, red hoodie pulled up over his head and controller in his lap as he slumped back onto his bed. The entire position looked uncomfortable, his shoulders pushed forward and his neck extended as he forced himself to play. His eyes were red from either exertion or crying, and Jisung doubted Jeno would cry over something like a mere rejection, but it did look like a possibility. The sounds of COD filled their ears as gunshots fired and sputtered from the speakers. 

“Jeno!” Renjun practically yelled over the sounds. “Jisung’s here!” 

Jeno barely even looked away from the screen as his thumbs slid and went trigger happy as he huffed softly under his breath.

“I don’t think it’s safe for me to go in there.” Jisung remarked as he gave him another once over. 

“Probably not...If you're here because you can’t host either, I think you’ll just encourage his sudden gaming obsession.” 

“The opposite, actually." Jisung muttered as he forced his eyes away. "I wanted to ask for information about the kid since I’m going to bring it up to my parents tonight.” 

Jeno, in his game crazy slump, somehow managed to hear that. He paused the game and blinked himself back into reality as his eyes looked to the boys in his doorway for the first time. His voice was quiet, almost as if he were in the middle of a daydream. “...What?” 

“Oh thank God,” Mark snickered as he passed by them in the hallway with a laundry basket. “I thought he’d never come back.” 

“You heard me?” 

“I think so.” Jeno mumbled. "I only heard like three words." He pulled the hood from over his head, black hair messy and disheveled as he combed his fingers through it. It didn't do much, just messed things up more. It was a good look on him, the whole messy thing. He repeated what he had told Renjun and Jeno perked up instantly. “Wait, you’re serious about wanting to host him? You weren’t just saying that?” 

Jisung shook his head. “Nope. I wasn’t. I spent the entire night looking up stuff about hosting." 

Jeno's happiness faltered and he dropped the controller into his lap. “It doesn’t matter, anyway.” 

Jisung's heart sank. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter? I heard you weren’t able to and-” 

“Somebody else already took him in.” Jeno interrupted. “And I have no idea who.” 

Jisung and Renjun exchanged looks. Someone else had took Chenle in? And Jeno didn’t know who? It wasn’t Jisung or Jeno and he was nearly positive that if Jaemin had convinced his mother that he would’ve told everyone in the groupchat. He wasn’t exactly the best at hiding his excitement with these types of things… Especially something so important. 

“That’s…” Jisung trailed off. Really, he wanted to say that is was terrible, but he figured that wouldn’t help with the morale of the group. He also wanted to say it sucked because he could've been sleeping but instead decided to obsess over learning something he wasn't going to even need information about now. 

Jeno’s frown filled the silence that followed. 

“I guess we’ll find out when school starts up on Monday, huh?” He said softly, but his voice was laced with a bitter that even he couldn't hide. 

Renjun and Jisung both nodded in agreement. All they could do was wait and find out. 

“It just sucks that we’re probably not going to be able to get close to him now.” The oldest of the three sighed. “I really wanted to help him out.” 

“Yeah, we all did.” 

“Well…” Jeno picked up the controller from his lap again and then leaned across his bed to snatch another one from the nightstand. He held it out to neither of them in particular and wiggled the white thing in the air. “...You want to play?” 

* * *

The rest of the weekend flew by before Jisung even realized it.

The last days of summer might as well have been nonexistent, Jisung sleeping them away and getting stuff ready for his classes. Dream had another little meetup, but half of the group couldn’t even go. “I’m being forced by my mom to go shopping.” Was Jaemin’s excuse, Hyuck was busy dying his hair a terribly bright color when they wanted to leave, and Jisung had dance practice at the same time. 

“I guess we’re just going to the movies without you guys.” Mark said on their group call. 

“Don’t be an ass, you know I’d go if I could.” Donghyuck sneered.

Part of Jisung wished he’d said yes, but skipping dance was just about the last thing he wanted to do. He later found out that his instructor wasn’t even there that day and got sent home early. In fact, Taeyong wasn't going to be at his studio until way later into the week. 

Then after that, and in no time at all, school was back in session. 

Jisung forgot how annoying his alarm clock sounded until he had it screaming in his ear that morning. He’d gotten ready with some forced effort and nearly fell asleep in his bowl of cereal before he tugged on his shoes and walked to the place he’d be stuck at for at least the next two hundred days. 

He probably should’ve been excited for the change and the fact that he wouldn’t be at the bottom of the food chain, the new year one filled with new opportunity to grow as a dancer and academically, but all of the potential excitement he might've felt melted away the second he stepped through the doors. 

Not to mention that the first day back at school was the longest day Jisung had ever experienced in his life.

Minutes seemed to last for hours and the hours felt even more extended than those, causing the day to feel like plain torture. The only thing that was good about it, however, was when lunch came around. All of Dream had the same lunch period, making the members and their iconic table by the windows something he knew he could confide in. 

That table had been the one that welcomed him with open arms when he first started at the school. Ah, the good old days when Yukhei, "Lucas", they called him, still went to their school. He had graduated last year, but the group still liked to meet up with him when they could. Lucas and Jungwoo, boyfriends as of recent news, often stopped by to see them during the summer, helping paint the Dream HQ and bringing them food every once in awhile. They were busy traveling the world now and Jisung would be lying if he said he didn’t envy it. It was Lucas and Mark who had opened the table up to take him into their group… It was because of them that Jisung was a part of Dream to begin with. 

“I remember when I was a freshman,” Lucas had explained, smile wide and bright, “and nobody really showed me kindness. Sit with us?” 

From that day on, they had been the Dreamies, Jisung included. They made Jisung’s transition into the school easy and gave him a group of friends he wouldn’t trade for the world; A group of people with huge dreams, funny personalities, and genuine support for one another. He couldn’t have gotten a better group of friends to call his own, though he’d never admit how much they truly meant to him. 

Walking into the cafeteria, he could see that Mark and Renjun had already made themselves comfortable in their spots, joined shortly after by Hyuck sat across from them in his usual place as Jisung caught sight of them. The two seniors looked as exhausted as Jisung felt, and Hyuck was no exception, Mark giving Hyuck a sleepy smile as he spoke a sweet greeting to him. Jisung made his way over. He set lunch box down and sat in his own reserved spot, and exhaled loudly to express his emotions before anyone even asked. 

“Same.” Renjun hummed. He sulked and rested his head down on the white table and closed his eyes. Mark put his hand on his head and ruffled his hair.

“Not a single one of my classes today has been interesting,” Donghyuck continued next to him, “I think I almost fell asleep listening to my Bio teacher." 

“Short brown haired woman with really thin lips?” 

“That’s the one.” 

“Oh, man, I had her last year.” Mark chuckled. “Worst class of my life.” 

“Jeno folded a paper airplane out of her syllabus.” He grinned. “I’m glad he’s in at least one of my classes today, actually. It’s been awhile since I’ve had a class with any of you guys.” 

“I’ve never had a class with any of you.” Jisung remarked with a roll of his eyes. It was true, since he was the youngest out of their group. “Where is he, anyway? And everyone else?” 

“Jeno’s probably dead in a ditch somewhere.” 

“I would be too if I were taking Latin.” 

.

Renjun furrowed a brow and looked up, cheek squished against the table. “Who let him take Latin?” 

Mark shrugged. “I didn’t even know we had Latin.” 

“What does Latin even sound like?” 

“Latin.” 

“Latin’s a dead language you dumbasses.” 

“Are you guys talking about me again?” Jeno smiled as he sat between Hyuck and Jisung, lunch tray set in front of him. 

“Yeah, we’re just judging your class choices.” Jisung admitted. “But like. Seriously, why?” 

Jeno shrugged and popped a French fry into his mouth. "Free credits."

Jeno looked particularly bright that day, smile big and stretched across his face. He looked nothing like he had the other day when Jisung and Renjun had to pull him back from the realm of a gaming lapse. He poked Renjun's sleepy head as he sat down with a laugh and Jisung vaguely wondered what had happened that got him so excited. He kept his inquiries to himself. It wasn’t uncommon for him to be smiling for no reason, after all. 

The five of them had just got into a conversation about what Latin sounded like to them in their own minds when they were interrupted by Jaemin’s bright smiling face and really loud voice.

“Hey, guys!” He greet them all, setting his tray down. “I have a surprise.” 

“That’s never good.” Donghyuck snickered. "Especially when it's the first thing you say." Jaemin rolled his eyes. 

“I think you’ll like it-Seriously, it’s a good one. I promise.” 

Jaemin's surprises were either the best things, or the most terrifying things. He was the resident troublemaker and risk taker of the group, his thoughts more times than not safer if they were kept to himself than executed. Of course, the latter was what usually happened. 

“I already know.” Jeno grinned. 

“Shh, don’t ruin it for everyone else. Okay, any guesses?” 

“You and Jeno are finally dating?” Jisung teased. 

A look of betrayal crossed Jeno’s face, eyed wide and jaw dropped as he gaped at the suggestion. Renjun, Mark, and Donghyuck cackled loudly at the comment and Jisung raised his eyebrows with a pleased smile. 

“H-Hey, okay, listen, you guys-” 

“Anyway!" Jaemin spoke up in an attempt to break off the awkward. “I’ve just gotta wait until… Oh! There he is!” He flapped his limbs in the air as he loudly called out into the cafeteria and stood up from his seat. He looked ridiculous, like one of those people that stood outside by the streets flipping signs to get you to go to their store. "Hey! Chenle! Chenle, c’mon, you can sit with us!” 

Chenle? 

The entire group, aside from a recovering Jeno, watched with curiosity as Jaemin excitedly waved a boy over to their table. 

The boy was no taller than Jisung himself, hair a bright golden blonde with dark eyes and a soft coloration to his smooth skin. He awkwardly smiled and waved with his free hand that wasn’t holding one of the bright red cafeteria trays as he walked over. There was no denying that he was undeniably cute, the smile one that Jisung could see himself getting used to seeing around. 

“Hey, you’re sure?” He spoke, voice sweet and genuine. 

“Of course I’m sure.” Jaemin nodded. Chenle smiled at that assurance. 

“Ooh, so he’s the Chinese exchange student!” Renjun beamed, suddenly filled with energy as he lifted his head. 

“Yup, and he’s staying with me~” Jaemin purred as he settled down into his seat. “Chenle, you can sit there.” He pointed to the seat across from Jisung. Since Mark sat the the edge of the table anyway, it made those facing each other at the table an even number for the first time in awhile. Chenle did exactly that, shyly sitting down in the seat. 

“Wait, so you were the person who signed up to host him?” 

“Yup. Surprise?” 

“You gave Jeno a heart attack.” Mark sighed. “He literally was depressed that entire day. He probably broke his eardrums with Call of Duty at max volume.” 

Jaemin bit his lip with a grin and raised his eyebrows. “Whoops.” 

Jeno, having recovered from being called out, spoke up. “Okay, A, I’m not deaf yet, and B, he called me and told me later that night about it. It’s why he had to go shopping when we went to the movies.” 

“Yeah, we were buying stuff for Chenle’s room. It turned out really good if you ask me.” 

“You spent _way_ too much on it, if you ask _me_.” Chenle sighed. 

That didn't surprise Jisung. When Jaemin committed to something, he went all in. It was one of this favorite qualities about him... If not the only quality that he actually liked at Jaemin had.

“Shh, we wanted to. Okay, everyone. We’ve got to introduce ourselves. I already told him all the dirt about each of you so don’t worry about trying to keep up a reputation; You’ve all been exposed.” 

“You’re evil, Nana.” Mark laughed, with a shake of his head. “I’m Mark. Senior. I might as well be the leader of our little friend group.” 

Everyone went around the table and said their names and what year they were in until it circled back to Chenle and he repeated his own personal information. He revealed that he was indeed from China and, to Jisung’s interest, was in the same year as him.

“That’s so cool that you’re from China.” Jisung offered, smiling at him. Chenle returned the gesture, though his smile was filled with an awkward ‘how so?’ 

“I’m from China, too.” Renjun added. 

“Yeah, Jaemin told me!” Chenle nodded. “It’s cool to know I’m not the only Chinese student here. And Kun seems really nice, too.” 

At his name, all the members repeated it in different tones, “Kun!” and “Oh, Kun~” being passed around the table in their little inside joke of snickers and wide grins.

“You’re staying with Jaemin? For real?” Hyuck tipped his head. 

“Duh, didn’t you hear me when I introduced him like two minutes ago? My family’s hosting him-” 

“Shh, let the man speak.” 

Chenle smiled again, though this time it was much more genuine. “Yeah, I’m staying with Jaemin. His family is super nice and you all sound like really cool people, too. I hope we can get along.” 

“We’ll get along just fine, I think.” 

The other members of the group nodded in agreement. 

For some reason, Jisung found himself staring at Chenle during his conversations with other members of the table. Curiosity, probably. He watched him intently and noticed that his teeth were even whiter up close and that he had this little habit of leaning forward when he was listening to someone else speak. He seemed like a nice kid, the type that girls would swoon over and that you’d want to introduce to your parents one day. He smiled with his entire being and existence; The type of smile that you could stare at for hours and still feel touched by. 

“Hey, guys? How about we go out and do something tonight?” Mark spoke up towards the end of lunch. 

“What, like dinner?” 

“Maybe.” 

“How about we plan for this weekend? We can take Chenle around and show him the cool places in Seoul.” 

Everyone nodded in agreement at the suggestion. There were tons of cool places they could take him to and show him around. There were beautiful sights and cool secret hotspots that all of the teenagers hung out at that only the locals knew about. There was HQ, and their special little place, and everything under the sun. With Chenle being adopted into their group, that meant that he would have to learn all of these things, too.

“That sounds great,” He smiled, “But.. uh.. I need a little bit of help finding my next class first? Can you guys tell me where room 304 is?” He held up his schedule, printed onto a nice piece of paper with room numbers and teacher names. 

“Ooh, let me see that. I probably had some of your teachers last year.” Jaemin reached a grabby hand out towards him. Chenle handed his schedule over to Jaemin. Jisung leaned over, too, looking the page over to see what classes he had. 

Jaemin tapped a teacher’s name and nodded in improvement. “This guy- _woo,_ he was a struggle last year. Just don’t speak up a lot in class, though. He hates when people have opinions.” 

“You have the same class as me next period.” Jisung observed, and he tapped the paper. “304. We’re in the same English class.” 

Huh. That was a first. 

“Woah, really?” Chenle gaped. “Can you show me how to get there?” 

Jisung nodded and continued to look over the schedule. “Oh, and we have algebra right after together, too.” 

“Woah, Jisung’s in the same class as someone for once.” Donhyuck smiled and tipped his head. "That's a change." 

“Get out, I know that I’m the youngest.” He snickered, then handed Chenle the schedule back. He offered him a small smile and nodded his head. “I’ll help you get to the classes, it’s no problem.” 

Chenle smiled back brightly, eyes pushing up into cute little crescents. “Thanks. Really, it means a lot.” 

Jisung would be lying if he said that he didn’t stare at that smile for just a little bit longer than he should have. There was something about him, something that was magnetic about the way that he spoke and how his entire face seemed to light up when he told him he’d help that made Jisung’s eyes linger. It was strange the way that he seemed so genuinely excited about everything, so thrilled by the idea of it. He nodded to himself again for no particular reason and then tore his eyes away from him, finishing up his lunch quietly as conversation picked back up across the table. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I’m definitely going to write this out! I have plans! I'm going to try and update it once a week.


	3. Kitchen Fires With Kun

“It’s so _big_ here.” Chenle marveled nearly instantly. 

The two of them walked down the hallway side by side after their cafeteria dismissal, the high ceilings and glass windows of the school surrounding them on either side. He tilted his head back just to look at it all, mouth going slack jawed while his brown eyes took it all in with charming curiosity. He looked at the school halls the way that someone might look up at skyscrapers when seeing the city for the first time; Speechless, breathless, and eager to experience everything there was to offer. Jisung remembered when he first had seen the school; He had taken it all in the same exact way. 

“I guess it is, huh?” Jisung agreed. He adjusted the straps of his backpack and shared in the experience, glancing around. 

“My school back in China was nothing like this.” Chenle looked back over at Jisung. “Everything is so much more organized here. Back home? Not as much.” 

“I see. Why’d you come to Korea anyway?” Jisung asked. Maybe it was a little bit invasive, but he was genuinely curious. 

Chenle scratched at the back of his neck as he thought of how to answer, a sheepish smile curling his lip once more as he explained. “I want to succeed in the music industry. I heard this school would help me do that, and it’s something I want more than I can breathe… That probably sounds crazy, huh? A kid that wants to be a popstar?”

Jisung shook his head. “No, it really doesn’t.” And honestly, it didn’t. Everyone in their friend group shared the same aspiration, after all. Himself included. While he fancied the dance aspect of the music industry more than the singing and rapping part, he had big dreams. Dreams of being on a stage where the crowd surrounding him were chanting his name, each and every one of them there to see _him_. Every day was a day he worked towards that dream, long hours spent locked away at Taeyong's dance studio as he repetitively told himself "one more rep". One more rep of course led to another, and then another, and before he knew it, he had done twenty and he still wasn't satisfied. Perhaps the bittersweet part of it all was the feeling that even doing the one thing he excelled at, he was never quite good enough. Chenle smiled at the reassurance and the two of them continued on in silence through the hallway. 

The class was everything Jisung expected from a second year English class: There was the stereotypical “Welcome!” poster plastered across the front of the classroom and the teacher was a beautiful blonde woman that most certainly was not Korean. He sat with Chenle during the class and repeated the same process he had in all of his other classes of getting papers and everything he didn't care about. She passed out a syllabus, a terribly thick thing, printed front and back with the class agenda, rules, and everything that the kids would forget by the time they left the class that afternoon. Jisung tuned her out for the most part, listless as he flipped the thing over when instructed to do so as he thought about what he was going to do later that night. He stole a glance over at Chenle every once in awhile just to see if the reaction was mutual, almost always being met with Chenle’s eyes glued to the paper, zoned out. He smiled a little to himself and wiped it off before the teacher noticed every time.

In the last few minutes of the class, the teacher had finished her little rant and allowed them to talk amongst themselves quietly until the bell rang. Chenle set the paper down and turned to Jisung almost immediately, blurting “I didn’t listen to a single thing she said.” A little bit louder than he probably should've. 

Jisung raised an eyebrow with a grin. “Seriously? Wow, I would’ve never guessed.” 

“No, like. Actually.” Chenle snickered. He combed his fingers through his hair and then slipped the paper into a folder. Jisung watched him, the way his fingers carefully slotted it into its rightful place strangely mesmerizing. “I don’t really even remember her name?” 

“It’s on the board, dude.” He managed as he pulled himself back from whatever momentary lapse it was he had experienced. 

Chenle squinted his eyes at the big whiteboard at the front of the room. His entire face scrunched up as well as he deciphered the text, the realization flooding to him as he mumbled a dumbfound “Oh.” 

Jisung burst out laughing and shook his head. There was something about the extremity of his facials that was hilarious. From what he'd seen of Chenle during the time he had known him, you could tell every emotion he was feeling just by looking at his face. It was endearing to know that no matter what Chenle said that his face would contradict or agree with his statement. It made reading him easier for Jisung, and that was something he appreciated.

“Okay, to my defense,” Chenle held up a finger, “I just got off of a plane early this morning.” 

Jisung nodded. “Oh, but of _course_.” 

“Don’t be a dick!” The blonde laughed and shook his head, gently smacking him on the arm. Jisung joined him in the laughter once more as he pulled his backpack strap over his shoulder.

Chenle was a lot like the rest of Dream, Jisung noticed. He had a good sense of humor and he didn’t take teasing literally; Those two things were all someone really needed to be in Dream. Well, those and high aspirations. Chenle had those too, as Jisung found out in the hallway. There wasn’t a single thing wrong with him, or so it seemed. He was... Dare he say, perfect. But Jisung knew better than anyone that nobody was perfect.

The two of them walked to algebra together after the bell came, Jisung flicking through his phone as they went down the hallway. Their friend group chat had blown up his notifications while they were in the class, fortunately he had muted them all long ago, and it looked like Jaemin and Renjun were having a full blown conversation about plans for the weekend. He didn’t bother to read through them all, he knew they’d probably bring it up again later or that they’d all have another group call that Jisung again shouldn’t have answered but did as he did every time.

Seats were assigned for algebra, Jisung getting put in the very back of the room while Chenle was seated towards the very front. The blonde threw a smile over his shoulder every now and then as the teacher gave his own tangent about the importance of letters and numbers, mouthing little “this guy’s crazy?” and “I don’t understand a single thing he’s saying”s that Jisung smiled at and laughed silently because of throughout the duration of the class period. It was like the two of them were in their own little world, exchanging silent messages with one another as the teacher droned on without noticing. _These_ were the memories of high school Jisung wanted to remember. That stupid little smile didn't leave his lips until the bell rang. 

* * *

Chenle met up with Jaemin at the end of the day, a huge smile plastered on his face as he met the boy’s side. He had been told to meet him at the cafeteria doors and he bounced over with more enthusiasm than he had had at the start of the day, miraculously. 

“Good first day?” He asked with a grin. Chenle nodded and let out a pleased sigh. 

“It was _amazing_.” He breathed. “I can’t wait for the rest of the week.”

And he genuinely meant it. The entire school day had been filled with moments that left him awestruck at the fact that this, this school, was now his own for the remaining school year. It was tantalizing, new, and fresh, everything he never thought he'd expect from the experience. He never thought he could appreciate a school and the people within it until he arrived that morning and met everyone in Dream. 

“Ew, you actually like school.” Jaemin snickered as he met his side. He nodded toward the front doors of the school with his head. “C’mon, let’s get home. Kun’s cooking.” Chenle agreed and the two of them walked out of the big building together. 

* * *

As soon as they got home, they were met with the sounds of a fire alarm, the smell of smoke, and the sight of Kun screeching as he aggressively pat a pot on the stove that was on fire with a broom. 

“This wasn’t supposed to happen!” He yelled at it over the sounds of the fire alarm going off, oblivious to the two boys as they stood in the doorway. "Begone, fire!" 

Jaemin covered his mouth with his arm and coughed into it as he flung his bookbag off into the hallway, waving his hand to push away the smoke. "Are you _kidding_ me?" Out of all of the things that had happened in that house, and out of everything that Kun had been responsible for, a fire in the kitchen was a first.

“What’re we supposed to do?” Chenle opened the door all the way to usher out more smoke. The thin fog crept out the door and into the unknown as he dropped his book bag onto the ground as well. 

“Kun!” Jaemin yelled over the beeping. “Kun, what happened?!” 

Kun, who looked more stressed than a wine mom, held up his burning broom as he noticed the boys in the hall. “I caught dinner on fire!” His answer seemed more like a joyous proclamation of accomplishment than the terrible thing that it truly was.

”Yeah, and the broom!” Jaemin retort before the smoke got to him and he started to cough again.

“Should we call the fire department?” Chenle asked.

“Oh, god, please no-” Jaemin stammered through his coughing fit. “My parents’ll lose their shit if they find out-”

“I mean," Chenle gestured to Kun and his antics, an awkward smile upturning his lips, "they already lost the broom.”

Kun knocked the said broom against the kitchen tile as this exchange went along. Sparks flung off of the burned bristles and black ash streaks littered the tile while a little fire raged from a big pot on the stove. “Can someone help-? I'm kind of having a crisis!” Kun called. Jaemin and Chenle ushered over quickly as Kun continued to try to put the broom out completely by smacking it against things. 

“I love-” Chenle breathed as he pulled his shirt over his nose, “-Korea. So much.” 

Jaemin rolled his eyes and snatched a cup from the cupboard and handed another to Chenle who filled it with water. “Why is _this_ what you love about Korea?” He hastily tossed the water over the flames as they raged and a sizzle erupted at the contact.

“Because stuff like this never happens back at-” Chenle turned to throw his water onto the stove, but instead ended up knocking right into Kun, the glass spilling right over his head as he was crouched down to intensify the degree of his pats. “-home.. Oh my gosh!” 

It was like a scene right out of a comedy movie, except there were no wat wat wahs or witty comebacks to follow. Just the sound to the fire alarm and the sight of Kun as he reached up to touch his now soaked locks. 

“That’s cold!” He squealed as he wriggled on the floor with his burnt broom. "O w." 

Jaemin burst out laughing at that and tossed another cup of water over the flame until he began to cough again and wheezed out a little “Oh my _god_.” under his breath.

“I’m so sorry!” Chenle gasped, but he couldn’t help but laugh, too, Kun’s head completely and utterly soaked with water a sight way too hilarious to pass up. Kun shook his wet hair like a dog who had just gotten out of the bath and coughed into his arm. If it weren't for the fire alarm beeps and the fact that Jaemin had literally just put out a miniature fire on the stove, he probably would've allowed himself more time to enjoy the fact that he actually had done that.

Jaemin poured another cup over the bristles of Kun’s burnt broom before he set in down on the counter and slumped against it, the three of them breathing in the clearing air, coughing, and staring at one another with “did that actually just happen” looks written across their faces as they sat on the kitchen floor. They were left only with the broom, bristles once light brown singed black, kitchen tile smeared with ash, and the thick stench of whatever it was Kun had attempted to make wafting through the air. 

“You actually set dinner on fire…” Jaemin mumbled as he assimilated the situation. His eyes trailed to the stove and then the burnt bristles of Kun's beat-up broom. 

Kun nodded as he sucked in a breath, voice breathless and as awestruck as Chenle felt. “I did.” 

“He set it on _fire_.” Chenle emphasized. “Like, actually.” 

“Shh,” Kun said as he stood up. He reached the broom handle up to turn off the fire alarm, poking it around until he found the right button and the incessant beeping came to an end. “Don’t tell Jaemin’s parents.” 

Jaemin shook his head and laughed. “Dude, you set the stove on _fire_.” 

“On _fire_.” Chenle echoed again. 

“I get it, you guys, I get it.” Kun snickered. Jaemin held up a little fist and Chenle knocked it with his own with a triumphant smile. 

“Well, this can only mean one thing.” Kun gestured to the burnt broom in his hand, his drenched hair, and the burnt pot on the stove. Really, it could've meant a lot of things. The most important, and scary, in all honesty, being that Jaemin's parents could kick Kun out for another accident that 'endangered' Jaemin and that 'influenced' him in negative ways. Instead, Kun just said “It looks like we’re ordering pizza. All in favor?” 

The three of them all raised their hands. 

"All in favor of _not_ telling my parents?" Jaemin added. He knew he didn't have to: Not a single one of them were looking forward to mentioning it ever again. And, as predicted everyone raised their hands. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot is coming in the next chapter or the one after. I think I might have to divide up the chapters because the entire scene I want to write is relatively long and I want to be able to include an update at least once a week.


	4. Sexuality Is Difficult To Dechipher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot of the story is genuinely introduced next chapter. I was going to include it in this one, and you get some foreshadowing about said plot, but if I were to include the entire chapter as I wrote it, this chapter would be far too long and far too much to read at one time. I'll be uploading that chapter tomorrow, though. So no worries!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still don't know how the hell to format time skips on here

The first week of school flew by in an instant. Not nearly as quickly as summertime had melted by, but quickly nevertheless.

To say that Jisung enjoyed all of it would’ve been a lie. Getting back into the swing of things and the large workload of classes he knew he probably shouldn’t have taken if he wanted any social life at all had already proved themselves to be the very things he dreaded and told himself he could handle coming into the school year. Of course, as he always did around the time the first week was over, he found himself regretting the choice to up all of the difficulties of his classes to advanced. It wasn’t even that he was particularly or crazily smart, though he was in no means dumb or incapable of comprehending advanced material, rather that the influence of Dream seemed to pressure him to do it. Every single one of the boys in his friend group presented themselves with such grandeur and intellect that he, the youngest, often times felt like he was playing catch up. It felt like the least he could do was push himself: Just keep pushing himself until he felt like they were all equal. Like they were all the same. 

Dance was the only time he wasn’t behind them all, it was the time that he was ahead.

On the dancefloor, in a studio filled with mirrors, was where he felt like he truly belonged. He’d poured hours into his routines, spent countless nights working himself until Taeyong told him they were closing for the night and that he needed to get rest and begging him to just let him stay a little while longer. In a world where nothing ever went Jisung’s way, at least he could exercise perfection in the movements of his own body. Music? That was easy to understand. Easy to feel, even. Calculus? Biology? Throw a book like that in front of him with no instruction and he’d look illiterate. Tell him he had the studio alone for the night and he’d create magic. 

The week would’ve been better if Taeyong hadn’t decided to close the studio off until the weekend, postponing Jisung’s nightly walk down to the end of the street to work on a routine he’d been working on all month prior. He got lucky one night when Jeno told him he knew where Taeyong had moved the spare key and the two of them snuck in to work for an hour or two. Instead, and aside from that one night of relief, Jisung was pent up at home once the school day ended, papers upon papers stacked on his desk as he tried to remember just what it was they had started to learn about in Algebra. 

Now Jisung understood what Dongyhuck meant when he said having your friends in classes was a bad thing. It wasn’t that Jisung had never had any friends in a class with him, he was pretty popular and known by everyone in his year, but he had never had another member of the Dream table in a class with him. Needless to say, Chenle was very, _very_ distracting. 

It wasn’t like he tried to be, and it wasn’t even really Chenle’s fault at the heart of it all. The problem, though he didn’t want to admit it, was the fact that Jisung kept staring at him during class. He wasn’t even all that sure why or how. One second he would be writing out an intense problem the teacher had already begun to dish out and then before he knew it, x equaled Chenle’s little laugh under his breath at a joke from the kid sitting next to him. He couldn’t help it, there was just something about his mind that decided it wanted to have a radar for all things coherently Chenle at any given time he was anywhere near him. Even if that meant pulling Jisung out of math world and into the confusing world of a cute Chinese exchange student he didn’t understand his attraction towards. 

On the topic of Chenle, he had been absorbed into their friend group seamlessly, especially by the boys who were around him the most. He contributed to their lunch table tangents and annoyed complaints about teachers he didn’t even know the faces nor names to, and he laughed at all the right moments. His language barrier didn't seem to matter all that much considering there wasn't a whole lot he didn't understand and that Renjun gently informed him in Chinese when he didn't. He was the perfect addition to Dream: The personality they had been missing. However, as perfect as Chenle was for the group, and as perfect as he fit in, nobody really knew a whole lot about him. 

Chenle wasn’t exactly the type to talk about himself unless prompted to and, with so many other conversations bubbling out of the group constantly, that didn’t leave much time for personal inquiries. Renjun had thrown one once or twice in which the entire group learned that Chenle really enjoyed playing soccer and that his favorite color was always changing, but aside from that? They didn’t know much. And this became a topic of discussion on their group skype call Thursday night. It was conveniently timed to Jeno and Jisung’s water break, the two of them sweaty, huffing messes nearly the entire time. 

”I really like him,” Mark explained, “but I really don’t know a whole lot about him.” 

Seated next to him, Donghyuck nodded in agreement. It wasn’t a surprise to see the two of them together on a Thursday night, but nobody ever acknowledged it. Not even Jaemin, who usually enjoyed throwing the others under the bus to compensate for his lack of personal relationship success. If you could even call whatever exactly it was Mark and Donghyuck had going on a relationship.

Instead, Jaemin was seen walking through what any good friend would recognize to be the hallway outside of his room. He whispered into the microphone of his headphones, presumably so Chenle wouldn’t hear him on the phone with everyone like he had done the past few days. Mark insisted he didn’t want Chenle to feel bad about not being involved in their group calls or group chat just yet and feared he might feel excluded. “Alright, but listen,” He whispered, “he really is a good guy. I know more about him than you guys do and seriously, really, I think once you can get him to open up that he’ll really make you feel way better about everything.”

”I thought we were going to take him around town this weekend?” Jeno spoke up. His voice hitched afterwards and slipped into an unsteady pant that he doused in water. He continued after he composed himself as his fingers slicked back his black hair. “Forget about that, he’s going to learn anyway. How about we do something else?” 

“Something else?” Renjun echoed. The sound was drowned out, however, lost in the muffle that was him eating ramen noodles in the dining room. For some reason, whenever they had a group call, it seemed Renjun was either eating or asleep. Jaemin joked that he was truly on his way to becoming an old man at that point. 

“How about this,” Mark began, “we have a party at HQ tomorrow night. As far as I’m concerned, Jeno’s parents won’t be home until Saturday afternoon and that gives us the entire house and freedom to do whatever.” 

“That doesn’t sound bad at all. I like that idea more than running around town.” Everyone nodded their heads in agreement. 

“Yeah, I mean. What could go wrong?”

Jisung wanted to point out that there were plenty of things that could go wrong, but decided against it. 

Jaemin, whose screen showed he was still actively creeping throughout his own hallways, whispered into the mic, “It’s a yes from me. And I’m sure Chenle will say yes, too.” 

“And if he doesn’t?” 

“He will.” Jaemin assured. “C’mon, do you really think he’s going to want to stay at home after being invited to spend the night at his new friends’ house? We’re all he’s got, right now.” 

“Party at my place tomorrow.” Jeno reiterated, though it was more for himself than anyone else. The boys on the screen nodded in confirmation. 

“Yup. Whose turn is it to rent the movie?” 

Jisung raised his hand and waved it in the air. “Me. And don’t worry, I have a better taste in movies than Lucas.” 

The most notorious of the HQ sleepovers had been the very first one of last summer. It was the summer that Lucas left with Jungwoo to go travel the world, merely weeks before they took off for Thailand. He had picked up Zootopia and literally bawled his eyes out for no reason in the middle of the movie. The boys had spent an entire twenty minutes consoling him and cooing to him that everything was going to be okay while Jaemin pet his hair soothingly. They never trusted Lucas with choosing the movie from that night on, not that the opportunity ever presented itself. In fact, the boys weren’t sure if it ever would again. Not a single one of them knew what Lucas had been up to the past three months. Well, aside from mark who checked up on his Instagram every once in awhile. 

“Nothing overly gushy or gorey. Some people in this group can’t handle that stuff.” 

Jaemin pouted. “Aww, man.” 

“Nana, I don’t know why you’re complaining. You’re literally the reason we have the rule.” Donghyuck sneered. He smushed his cheek against mark’s arm and checked his nails, eyebrows raised boredly. 

“Okay, _listen_ \--” Jaemin began. He then paused, cut off by something before he was able to even remotely justify himself. “Wait, never mind, I’ve got to get going.” You could hear Chenle in the background as he faintly called Jaemin’s name, then you heard Jaemin yell “I’m coming!” as his image flashed blurry and his tiny square flickered off of the display. 

Jaemin hanging up prompt everyone else to do the same, the friends all exchanging different reasons for departure as their own screens flicked off one by one. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to walk you home?” Jeno asked him again for the tenth time that night. He always offered, insisting that any day Jisung would one day get jumped by someone dangerous and that Dream wouldn’t be the same without him and his occasional sass. Every time they were at the studio together late he asked, and every time Jisung politely declined. 

“It’s out of your way,” He said that night as he handed Jeno the key. “And besides, you’ve got this thing to hide.” 

Jeno took it from him and nodded. He wished him a safe walk home as he always did after his rejection, and Jisung, like he always did, promised he would send a text when he was home safely. And he did, that night. Sneaking into his home as quietly as he could and away to his room as he did every day. 

* * *

>

Friday dragged on forever. 

The initial invitation to the party was given to Chenle by Jaemin as he sat down, smile stretching his cheeks as “Guess what?” bubbled from his lips. Chenle curiously raised an eyebrow as he sipped his milk. “We’re having a sleepover tonight and _you_ ,” He leaned across the table and poke Chenle’s hand, “are invited.” 

Donghyuck rolled his eyes at the action. “You say it like we aren’t having the whole thing just for him.” 

Jaemin pointed a finger at him and narrowed his eyes. “Can you stop belittling my surprises lately, Hyuck?” Donghyuck’s eyes narrowed back the second the first syllable was rolled off of Jaemin’s tongue and Mark leaned over to redirect Jaemin’s finger from the aggressive point. 

“I’d love to go.” Chenle smiled. “I wouldn’t miss it.” 

* * *

The sleepover was all Chenle talked about during English. 

Try as Jisung might to redirect the conversation or hush him into a softer tone that would help ease the fact that it most certainly was not English that they were conversing in or about, there was no stopping him.

“I’m really excited,” He repeated again. “It seriously sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun.” 

“We haven’t even told you details yet.” Jisung reminded him as he wrote down his English name, “Joey”, on the top of his paper. “We could literally just be sleeping in the same room at Jeno’s and that could be it.” 

The sparkle in Chenle’s eye dimmed at that and his smile faltered awkwardly. “Oh…” He mumbled. 

Jisung shook his head quickly and whispered, “Don’t worry, it’s nothing like that at all. Honestly, we don’t really even sleep all that much. That is, unless you’re Mark and you “retire” to your room with Donghyuck at around two in the morning.” 

“Retire…” Chenle mumbled. You could practically see as the gears turned in his head and he put two and two together. “Mark and Donghyuck… Are they?” 

Jisung shrugged because in all honesty, he himself hadn’t been sure at that point. There were vast amounts of speculation within Dream about what exactly it was that had been going on between the two of them. “Some days, they hate each other. The next, they’re all sugar smiles and giggles. As far as we’re concerned, I don’t think they’re a think, at least nothing with a title, but Jeno once told me that he walked in on them making out at Lucas’s party last year.” 

Jisung and Jeno had brought it up to them later, of course, but both parties denied that they knew what either of them were talking about. Either Mark and Donghyuck were really trying to hide it, or they were under the influence of the “apple juice” snuck in by the other seniors at the time. 

“Holy-” 

Jisung and Chenle both fell silent as the English teacher looked up from her desk and over in their direction. When she looked away, a suspicious eyebrow raised at the two of them, Chenle continued at a whisper. “So… Mark’s gay?’

Ah, the important questions. The very questions Jisung had asked himself multiple times on multiple occasions. “I think he’s bi or something. I don’t know, he’s never not shown an interest in either, but he’s also never really shown one. Donghyuck? I mean. He just seems gay. I don’t know, you’re asking the same questions I ask. If you want one answer for definite, though, it’s Jaemin. Jaemin’s gay. Jaemin’s _really_ gay.” 

“Jaemin. Gay.” Chenle nodded and furrowed a brow as if he were mentally taking down notes. “Okay, got it.” 

“Alright, so, I’m going to let you in on something, but you can’t tell anyone.” Jisung held out his pinky towards Chenle as he said this. “It stays within our friend group and you can’t say a word to either of them directly, okay?” 

Chenle hooked their pinkies and nodded definitively. “I promise.” 

There was something about the way that he said it that was so genuine, so very sure and positive, that put Jisung at ease. It was strangely comforting, the feeling. Comparable to how one might feel after a long day and finally finding rest and refuge in sleep. It was something he found reliable: Something he could count on. He didn’t even have to ask the usual “are you sure?” that he did for everyone else. Chenle’s promise alone was law. 

“Okay, you know Jeno?” 

“Yeah, the one that kind of looks like a polar bear?” 

“That’s him. Jaemin’s had this humongous crush on him ever since he was a freshman. He doesn’t know it, but Jeno’s got a crush on him too. The thing is, the two of them are so terribly obvious about it but literally oblivious. They’re both too scared to even mention it or think to initiate something that their almost-relationship has been at a stalemate for what’s going to be two years.” Jisung sighed. 

Sadly, everything he said was true. The extent to which Jeno and Jaemin's obliviation loomed over them was literally ridiculous. Jaemin, on days in which he experienced more confident bursts of courage, would sometimes even hold hands with Jeno as they walked. He'd lace their fingers and lean into him as they did whatever it was they were doing and Jeno would brush it off as something a conservative parent would say like that Jaemin was "steadying himself via hand and leaning against him so that he didn't have to bear his body weight by himself" or something even more riduculous. They were excuses at that point. Jeno found excuses to disprove the fact that jaemin could like him back, and Jaemin, confident as he might've seemed, often times called Jisung at three in the morning to complain about how badly he just wished Jeno would see him in a romantic way. It was literally torture. Not just for them, not just for Jisung, but for everyone that was around them and their whipped obliviation on the daily. 

“And honestly, it’s annoying at this point that they haven’t even said a single ‘I like you’ to each other. Like, come on-”

“Joey.” Their English teacher spoke up from her seat. His English name, of course, never his Korean name. She gestured for him to stop with his talking and he mouthed an apology, in English, as she turned back to her work. He gave Chenle an apologetic look and then continued on with his work. 

Chenle smiled back at him and his eyes studied Jisung for a moment more than usual before he looked back down and carried on with his own. 


	5. Operation Nomin

Even though it was Chenle who most openly expressed how excited he was about the event, Jisung was just as thrilled about it. 

It had been awhile since the group had had an organized event at HQ, particularly of the sleepover variety. The last one had been in July, and Jisung had missed the antics of the parties ever since. There was something about a sleepover, spending the night with all of one's closest friends, that just made everything better. Those nights where the nights where the types of memories you grow old and tell your children about were made, the kind of nights that you can read about as much as you want but never truly understand unless you lived them. Nights of shared secrets, whispering, and the formosity of constellating. 

When he got home, he dug through the bin of assorted DVDs his parents had in the living room. It was a humongous little bin, stacked high with accumulated discs from years of bad Christmas presents and spur of the moment purchases from five for twenty deals. He grabbed a random one from the top, just a black DVD in a cheap little plastic box, and tapped off to his room. He threw the plastic thing into his bag and gathered up the other necessities quickly: Phone charger, headphones, a toothbrush, and a change of clothes for both the night and the next day. He looked around the room in another once over as he double checked to make sure he had gotten everything. That was, until he was interrupted. 

“Honey?” Spoke a voice softly behind him. A glance over his shoulder revealed his mother, beautiful in all of her five foot glory, hair wrapped up into a complicated bun on the top of her head. She looked exhausted and her brown eyes blinked slowly as she crossed her arms and leaned against his doorframe. 

His mother was a beautiful woman, a woman some would even consider to be breathtaking. She worked long hours most days, her occupation one that didn't allow her much time at home with her family. It didn't help that Jisung locked himself away in his room most times he was home or spent long nights at the studio or with Dream. It was rare that he really even saw his mother lately, it seemed. He'd vowed to himself a long time ago that when he became famous, when all of his hard work payed off, that he would pay so that she never had to work again. It wouldn't make up for the lost years that were stolen from them from work, but at least he could feel like he had done something for her as her son. 

“Hey, mom.” Jisung smiled as he whirled around and slung the strap of his bag on his arm. “How was work?” 

“Mm, ‘how was work’.” She hummed at him. He rarely asked the question, mainly because he rarely was even able to see her. She pointed to the bag over his shoulder. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Shoot, had he really forgot to mention it? He thought back to what he did Thursday night and really racked his brain to retrace his footsteps. The call, the walk home. The pitch black house where everyone was asleep and his mom wasn’t home and wouldn’t be home for hours… No, he really hadn’t said anything. Not even in the morning or in a text during the day. 

“Jeno’s.” Jisung blurted out. His mother opened her mouth to object, but Jisung continued quicker than she could deny him. “He’s having a sleepover at HQ for Dream. We invited over this new exchange student named Chenle and we’re trying to get to know him better so that he has some friends. You know, for everyone’s sake.” 

Jisung’s mother blinked at him as she took in everything that he had thrown at her. A small little ‘o’ formed on her lips after she put it all together, an impressed nod came from her. “That’s so sweet of you boys. No staying late tomorrow, though. You have dance.” 

Jisung didn’t need to be reminded about that, of course. It was all he had been looking forward to since Monday. “I’ll walk up with Jeno in the morning. No worries.” 

“Have fun then, angel.” She walked to him and leaned up to press a kiss to his cheek, soft and gentle. “Don’t forget your dance bag and actually try to get some sleep.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I will, I won’t.” He replied. Even though he knew as well as the next guy going to Jeno’s that he probably wouldn’t get a wink of sleep of any value and he’d be feeling it later. After some more of his mother’s gentle advice and requests to send pictures, especially of Chenle, he grabbed his dance bag and headed off to HQ. 

* * *

HQ was lit.

...Literally.

As soon as Jisung got to Jeno’s and pushed open the big door, there was already a mini light show that reflected off of the light inside of their special room into the hallway, colorful sparks of light lolled over the smooth walls while loud music thumped inside. It was like he had stepped from day into night, the entire house completely and utterly pitch black aside from the lights. The windows had all been taped up with blankets and duct tape, conveniently changing their time zone. He walked along carefully towards the room, hand against the wall so he made sure he knew where he was going. The sounds of loud laughter and incoherent wheezes were audible as he got closer. 

As he turned into the room, he saw that Mark and Renjun were both stood at the front of the room in front of their flatscreen mounted onto the wall, microphones in hands as lyrics to a karaoke of Nicki Minaj’s Super Bass flashed and Mark rapped the lyrics loudly. His mouth punctuated each word perfectly and he leaned into them with a “I said ‘excuse me, you’re a hell of a guy.’” 

Jisung made his way in and grooved with the music as he set his stuff in the back of the room where everyone else had. Everyone but Donghyuck was there already. Chenle and Jaemin were responsible for the loud laughter Jisung had heard in the hallway, the two of them reclined back into huge beanbag chairs with smiles ineluctable and equally as big stretched across their faces. Jeno egged the two of his roommates on as he recorded the entire thing on his phone, a chuckle coming from him as Mark gave Renjun some finger guns as he started up the chorus, Renjun laughing into his own words. 

The two of them danced around at the front of the room together as they channeled their inner 2010 Nicki Minajes with hip swings, winks at the crowd of boys, and even a well timed mic drop at the end of a verse. Jaemin clapped along to the beat that blasted through the speakers as he moved around and wriggled as he felt the music. 

At the end of the song, the two leaned closer to each other with big, stupid grins, and said the last little “yeah, that’s that super bass” into Renjun’s mic as the karaoke on the TV came to an end and the loud clapping and cheering of the Dream boys took over instead. 

“Yes, my boys. Slay, my boys.” Jaemin praised. He blew a kiss at them and Mark pretended to catch it. He looked genuinely touched and held a hand to his heart and fake sobbed a little “Thank you” as he wiped the fake tears from under his eyes. 

Chenle leaned over towards Jisung and whispered, “That was actually really good! I didn’t know Renjun could sing.” His eyes were alight with the joy of discovery and his entire face showed how impressed he was.

“All of us can sing or rap, dude.” Jisung nudged him gently. “You should go up and give it a try.” 

Chenle opened his mouth to speak and potentially reject with whatever excuse his mind could think up, but Mark’s voice came out instead as the oldest waved his phone in the air. “Donghyuck’s on his way, so we probably have time for one more song.” 

Renjun flopped back down onto one of the beanbags. “I think Jeno and Jaemin should try to sing together.” 

”Yeah, I don’t think so.” Jaemin replied instantly. “We could never sing together. Right, Jeno?” 

“I mean, remember that one time when we-” But all it took was one look in Jaemin’s direction, his eyes wide, head tilted, and eyebrows raised to tell the “real” answer to the question. And Jeno, never quite being able to deny him, corrected himself. “We couldn’t.” 

Jisung rolled his eyes at this and nodded his head over towards the two of them as he muttered a little “Told you so.” just loud enough for Chenle to hear. 

Jeno and Jaemin’s nerves around each other were the type of nerves that were hard to see from an outside perspective. If you had never met Lee Jeno or Na Jaemin before, their interactions might’ve even seemed normal, smiles natural and situations avoided reasonably. For the boys of Dream, the boys that knew the two of them like the back of their hands, not so much. 

Jaemin was very outgoing, arguably the most outgoing in their entire group. He made mad jokes and encouraged the wrong things and often times ended up getting the boys in trouble with his ideas. For the past few months, especially over the summer, Na Jaemin had become a nervous ball of really bad flirting and oblivious infatuation that fluctuated his mood around Jeno. On some days, he was fine. He’d make jokes, meme around with the rest of the group, and act like himself. On other days, he’d look at Jeno and just _change_ , his usual witty comebacks and farfetched propositions melted away and left a different version of the boy: A lovestruck teenager.

That Jaemin was the Jaemin that couldn’t even look in Jeno’s direction without getting flustered, the Jaemin that hid his face in his hands and would explain all of the dramatic details of the almost encounter on the phone with Jisung later in the early hours of the morning. 

Regardless of the mood Jaemin was in on any given day, even at his most confident of states, he never liked doing things with Jeno in front of the group as a whole, it seemed. He jumped on any opportunity there was to be alone with him, rather, mundivagent in his hopes of being able to get Jeno to realize how he felt about him. It was contradicting, but it was the confusing reasoning of Na Jaemin. 

“One more song.” Mark repeat. “Somebody, anybody.” 

Again, Jisung looked over at Chenle. “I think you should. I’ll do it with you, too.” 

Chenle seemed to consider this for a moment, brown eyes visibly thoughtful even in the darkness as the little rainbow lights rolled lazily across his face. “Well… Maybe later?” 

It was then that Donghyuck made his appearance. He walked right into HQ and pointed back into the hallway with a raised eyebrow, his entry statement a blunt and quick “Why the hell did you duct tape the windows.”

“It’s a part of the experience.” Jeno answered simply, as if that was all he needed to explain it. Donghyuck looked at him with a raised eyebrow for a minute before he sighed and dropped his stuff into the growing pile in the back. 

”Well, nevermind karaoke. He’s here, that means we can start the movie." Mark said. He set the microphone back down onto the ground where the other one was and headed to his own respective beanbag, sitting with a thump. "Jisung, can you get the tape?” 

Jisung rolled off of his beanbag chair with a grunt and headed over to his bag to snatch the DVD. It didn’t take long to find where he had put it, and he carried it over to the player he’d learned to operate last year. He flunked down and sat next to it as he popped open the contraption. 

“What’d you rent?” Renjun mused as he leaned forward in his chair. 

“Find,” Jisung corrected as he popped the tray open, “and I honestly have no clue.” 

“Mystery movie. Nice.” Renjun nodded. “I approve.” 

Jeno stood up from his spot next to his computer with some effort. He tossed the remote over to Chenle who caught it in his lap. “I’m going to go pop some popcorn. Can you guys wait until I get back to start?” 

As the rest of the group nodded, Jaemin stood up quicker than Jisung had ever seen him move before in his life… which was even more impressive considering he stood up from the hardest bean bag chair to get out of ever, “I’ll come too.” He declared. “I mean, you’ll have a lot of bowls to carry anyway.” 

Jeno didn’t argue, and, as the repetitive cycle of obliviation continued, nodded off to the hallway of darkness. It looked more like a void than anything, dark and ominous. Regardless, the two of them headed off into it bravely, never even bothering to look back or think twice.

Donghyuck looked down the hall after them and then shut the door. Quickly, he turned toward the rest of the group smacked his hand against his palm.

“Alright, I’m sick of this.” He huffed. “This is it. I’m not going to sit here and deal with this bullshit any longer.” 

Renjun tipped his head. “Jeno and Jaemin?” 

Donghyuck looked at him like he had five heads, the fact that he even said it like a question, like there could’ve been something else he was referring to, appalling. “Um. Yeah?”

“Oh thank god,” Jisung breathed as he leaned back into his beanbag, “I’m not alone.” 

Mark shook his head, brown hair gently displacing itself. “No. I think everyone here can agree at this point. It’s ridiculous.” 

Chenle nodded. “Sounds ridiculous.” He had promised not to say anything in class the other day, but it seemed that the extent of the promise was muddled with the exception of the Dream boys. It appeared that everyone already knew. 

“I say we compose a plan.” Hyuck said. He sat down right in front of the rows of beanbags and looked across the faces of each and every one of them. “By the end of this year, December, we’re going to get them together. I don’t care what it takes, what we have to say, or what we have to do. Drop hints, set up dates, write love notes if you have to, I can’t sit around and watch them oggle each other anymore.” 

“Wait,” Mark raised a hand, “so we’re puppeteering them into a relationship?” 

“Basically.” Donghyuck confirmed. 

“See, I’d feel bad if they hadn’t already been like this for two years.” Renjun sighed. Jisung nodded at that. It was the way he felt about everything, too. As much as he wanted to support Jaemin and be there for Jeno, it was difficult when neither of them took the steps they needed to to actually move forward. 

”Well, to our misfortune, they have.” 

“Seriously, and in all honesty, I think if we just work and build up Jeno’s confidence, he’ll do the damn thing.” Mark speculated. “He’s been talking a lot more about Jaemin recently to both Renjun and me and if that isn’t improvement and going in the right direction, I don’t know what is.” 

Chenle furrowed a brow at that. “Maybe…” He looked down at his hands in the dimly lit room, speckled with rainbows. His lips pouted as he thought, the gears turning in his head written across his expression. “Maybe I could get Jaemin to open up to me more about it and we can use what we learn to help in the plan?” 

“That’s good. Brilliant.” Hyuck nodded. “Yeah, I like that. Do it.” 

Jisung looked around at them, all four of the boys seated around next to and in front of him. If there was a better group of people to help get Jeno and Jaemin together, he didn’t know where to find them. Dream? No, they were going to become miniature cupids, arrows pointed directly at Jeno and Jaemin locked and loaded. He knew that they would be able to pull it off. If they all worked together, there was nothing that they wouldn’t be able to accomplish. As cliche as it might seem, he truly believed in it. He believed in each and every one of them. And he believed in Jeno, Jaemin, and their mutual whippedness.

“Alright guys,” Donghyuck prompted. “So Operation Nomin is a go?” 

The group nodded, each head an affirmed contributor in the plot. They had a few months to do it. A few months to end what two years of nonchalant flirting and velleity crushes couldn't.

“Great.” Mark smiled at them all. It was a beautiful thing, brilliant and white and filled with determination for their new task. “Let’s get these dumbasses together.” 

And just like that, there on the floor of HQ, their mission had begun. 


	6. It's A Date?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry that this update is so late in the week, I've been busy working on my novel and studying for my finals. Fortunately, I was able to bust out another little filler chapter today.

The hardest part of the sleepover was when Jeno and Jaemin came back and everyone had to act like they hadn’t just all verbally signed a plan to help get their relationship to actually become a relationship. Jaemin had the look in his eye that he suspected something, but if he really did, he didn’t ask. He just helped Jeno distribute the bowls of popcorn and sat down next to him in his spot. 

The movie turned out to be a bust. The mystery movie in the plastic case was discovered to be James Cameron’s Titanic, and it didn’t take a genius to know that that wasn’t exactly the type of movie you wanted to watch with your friends on a Friday night sleepover. 

But they ended up watching Titanic anyway. 

In spite of Jeno’s offers to scroll through Netflix to find something else, which he always argued was a smarter choice than renting because he already paid all of that money to have a Netflix subscription, the others decided that Titanic would be okay. Or… fine, rather. Surprisingly, only Mark and Renjun had seen the movie and were able to bask in the quality entertainment that was the other members reacting to it for the first time. Especially Jisung, Chenle, and Jaemin. Popcorn was thrown, screams were screamed, and frustration about Jack’s apparent readiness to die and insolence to actually try other ways to get on the board kept them amused. 

Jeno had fallen asleep not even half an hour after the movie started, justified with the claim he didn’t want to fall asleep during practice in the morning. He laid on the beanbag next to Jaemin, headphones in and hoodie pulled up and cinched so that only his nose and lips were exposed to the world. 

Sometime around the time of Jack’s untimely death and the trio of teenage boys screaming about it at three in the morning, Mark and Donghyuck had both fallen asleep. Or… Rather, Mark fell asleep and Donghyuck cuddled up to him, head on his chest and eyes closed as he nuzzled into him. They looked cute together, Jisung noticed. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen them share affection together, but it certainly was one of the first times they hadn’t tried to be lowkey about it. While at times they argued and pushed one another’s buttons, there were the times like those, peaceful and genuine, that it became obvious how far their affections truly lied. If they were to reveal that they had been a couple the entire time, Jisung wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised. They weren’t like Nomin, two kids that were nervous to initiate something for real; They both seemed perfectly content with sharing that something without a label. Why? Jisung would probably never know. Donghyuck didn’t openly throw around his feelings and Mark was never the type of person to disclose a secret. They’d tell everyone when they were ready, if they ever even had anything to tell. 

When the movie finally ended, it was just the drowsy trio and Renjun. Renjun wasn’t really even that awake to begin with since he flicked through his phone the entire time, more up for the sake of being able to say he stayed awake rather than to commit to the practice. Everyone fell asleep not too long after the movie was finished, the big hype of the party dead since almost all of Dream was asleep. Last year, when everyone was a year younger and Yukhei was still around, that was the time of the night that they looked forward to the most. It was the time for secrets whispered between friends as they faced each other in the hush of the darkness, a time for pranks and early morning sneaking around to get to the kitchen for food without anyone else hearing you. But Yukhei wasn’t there anymore, and Jaemin, the resident troublemaker, didn’t seem to have any bright ideas of how to mess with people. Instead, Jisung just closed his eyes and allowed his mind to relax into the loopy state of dream land. He could’ve sworn he heard conversation, though. It was hushed, gentle, and just barely above a whisper. But the words that were spoken were muddled as he was pulled off into a deep sleep. 

* * *

Jeno shook Jisung awake the next morning. Conveniently, and surprisingly, he had somehow managed to sleep the entire time up until they had to leave for dance. Bedhead flipped his hair up all over and tiredness tugged on his eyes as he sat up. A reoccurring theme for him, it seemed. He couldn’t quite remember what it was he had been dreaming about and he scratched his head as he looked around HQ drowsily. To his surprise, nobody but the two of them were in the room.

”Where’d everyone go?” He mumbled sleepily as a yawn escaped him.

Jeno handed Jisung his dance bag. “They went out for breakfast, I think.” 

Jisung nodded and blinked the tiredness from his eyes with some effort. He wiped at them with a baby-like fist. “I wish we did that."

”Raincheck?” 

“Raincheck.” Jisung agreed as he stretched his arms out in front of him. “And nobody else can come since they decided to ditch us.” 

Jeno laughed and nodded. “Deal. Go get dressed, I don’t want to be late again.” 

* * *

While Taeyong owned the dance studio on paper, it was Chittaphon who was behind almost all of the operations that went on within the building. 

Chittaphon was the main dance instructor for competition dancers and everything that Jisung wanted to be. He was fluid, confident, passionate, and had a large line of success in the dance field that followed behind him. He was commended as the best dancer and the best teacher in the entire studio by everyone, and it was no surprise given the number of awards he had brought home over the course of his career as a teenager. They called him “Ten” because of how many perfect scores he had on his record. To say that Jisung just looked up to him would’ve been an understatement: Jisung wanted to _be_ him. He wanted to be everything that Ten was and more. 

The only problem that came with Ten running things was that he made his own hours and there were times he would go without teaching anyone anything for a week or two at a time. It was nice sometimes and gave Jisung time to perfect everything twice, but other days it annoyed Jisung that the one thing he looked forward to most in life was the very thing that was filed under the label “most unreliable”. It had never been a big problem until the summer time came. Every time he had a lesson for the entire month of June, Jisung heard a string of apologies from Taeyong at the front desk and whatever it was the excuse behind Ten’s absence that day was. He was worth it, Jisung supposed, but every day that Ten wasn't there was a day that Jisung wasn’t being taught anything new. And for that very reason, he freestyled more than he worked on any types of routines for the entire season. 

Sophomore year was a big deal for him. It meant that he would be able to enter many more of the school’s competitions and stuff like that. So it was paramount that Ten was actually there to teach and come up with routines. Not even just for him, but for Jeno as well. 

While it was Ten who was their designated teacher, Taeyong would come in and work with them on the days that Jeno and Jisung were both there together more times than not. Taeyong had a soft spot for the Dream boys, each and every one of them, excluding Chenle, had gone to the studio at one point in their lives. He was a big fan of them and often made jokes that they should try to become a dance team sometime. He figured they’d probably go far, but Jisung wasn’t so sure. On this particular day, Taeyong was desk-bound, a phone glued to his ear. He smiled and waved at the boys as they walked by him.

To Jisung’s delight, Ten was actually up and well. Music blared loudly from inside of the studio, an upbeat pop song in English that Jisung didn’t know. In the middle of the room was Ten, the man himself, tight white skinny jeans, a graphic t-shirt, and a pair of sneakers. He moved along to the music with expert precision, arms outstretched and footsteps well calculated. 

To his delight, Ten actually had a new routine for both of them. Some days, provided he was actually there, he would have them dance together and on others, and much more commonly, they’d take turns. It had originally been Jaemin who was partnered up with Jeno, but one-day Jaemin just stopped going to dance practices. No given reason, no excuse, just a studio locker cleaned out. He told the others at a later time the real reason was that of a herniated disc and while he eventually got better and resumed dance, he never came back to lessons. 

The routine was pretty cool, in Jisung’s opinion. It was to a song from an American artist Jisung couldn’t remember the name of and had a lot of really fun jumps, kicks, and quick footwork. It was a good song to keep Jisung moving and he picked up on it after their third or fourth run, movements sharp and clean. Jeno got it down quickly as well, and they'd probably both have it down at recital perfection by the end of the week. The song wasn't too bad, either. It was something Jisung could see himself adding to his playlist to listen to in his own time.

After practice was over and Jisung finally had a chance to sit, he opened his phone to find that a group chat had been instigated. “Operation NM” blinked across his screen a mile a minute as the others in the group spammed the chat. Jisung tried to read the messages as they flashed, but they went so quickly that he only just barely caught one. 

“We need to start asap”

It was a message from a number Jisung didn’t have in his phone. Deductive reasoning showed that it was Chenle’s. He tossed his dance shoes into his bag between sips of water and added the number to his phone. The new contact, “Lele”, smiled up at him. The events of last night, he noticed, had also resulted in Chenle being added by Renjun to the Dream group chat. That in itself was probably the biggest accomplishment made by any one of them that year. 

He thumbed through the Nomin chat quickly. For a chat that was started only half an hour from when he opened it, there were over one hundred messages that Jisung had missed. He read over some in the middle as he passed by them. 

Lele: Wait, what’s the plan? 

Hyuck: We get them together… ANd we need to startt o da y with dropping hints people. WHere tf is Jisung he could be doing that rn. 

Jisung looked from the phone over at Jeno who sat next to him on his phone as well. He tipped his head back as he downed some water and Jisung looked back at the screen. Even though he had signed up for the operation, he was really pretty shitty when it came to that type of thing. He could sass them and throw shitty one-liners at the lunch table, but actually trying to put in the effort to get them together? That was an entirely different thing. Completely and utterly different.

But, at the end of the day, he was in the perfect position to say something. Not only that, but he’d signed up for it. He wasn’t going to back out of something that they’d all agreed to. They even had a group chat, for God’s sake. There really was no getting out of it when a group chat was involved. 

“Hey, Jeno?” He spoke up. Jeno looked over at him as he started to unlace a shoe. “What’re you doing next week?” 

“I don’t even know what I’m having for dinner tonight. Why, did you want to do something?” 

“Just curious.” Jisung replied. He pulled on his converse and then hurried out before Jeno could ask any more questions. He threw quick goodbyes to Ten and Taeyong as he passed by them on his way out, and then headed out into the day. 

* * *

Sunday afternoon was the first official meetup of Operation Nomin. Donghyuck had arranged for everyone to meet at Susan’s to discuss plans and how they were going to go about things to get them together. There was some big idea that Donghyuck had come up with that was apparently too good to just be told over a simple little text and that he wanted to tell everyone in person. 

Chenle didn’t know the area at all, and Jisung woke up to a small text on his phone that morning. “Can you walk with me?” and the name Lele lit up his locked phone screen with a time stamp of only seconds prior to when Jisung heard the ding. 

It was a simple request and one that was just so obvious. Yet even so… He’d be lying to himself if his heart didn’t do a little flip when he read it. He could practically hear Chenle ask him, voice soft but oh so very loud at the same time. His mind flashed with the image of the boy in algebra as he smiled over his shoulder at Jisung rows and rows behind him. His mind played the memory of the two of them in English as they laughed at the fake names they were given... He was so vibrant and so contagious in everything that he did. 

Jisung stared at the words on his phone until he realized that he had started to smile himself. He must've looked like a complete idiot, a grin plastered on his face over nothing more than a text message and a barrage of memories he'd made in only a week.

He sent a quick little text to Chenle saying that he’d pick him up from Jaemin’s before Susan's and then rolled over in bed and fell back asleep. 

* * *

Before Jisung knew it, he had walked all the way across town to Jaemin's. It wasn’t a long walk, just long and far enough away to feel like you had just successfully made a journey. It was refreshing to be out on his own again, the crisp air a friendly reminder that summer was over and that the fall season would begin within the next couple of weeks. His boots carried him up to the door of the house and he knocked on the door. It always seemed like he was knocking on doors and showing up at people’s houses. 

It was opened by Kun... who most certainly was not Chenle. 

“Oh no, there’s a troublemaker at my door.” Kun teased as he opened the door up and gestured for him to come in. Jisung rolled his eyes and elbowed him as he passed by. 

“I’m here to pick up Chenle. I sent him a text a few minutes ago about it and he didn’t reply.” 

“Yikes!" Kun gasped dramatically. "He left you on read.” 

“I-...” Jisung opened his mouth to protest, but it was true. For some reason, hearing that from Kun struck a chord with him. Chenle wouldn't actually ignore him, right? He had no reason to... But even the thought of it was unsettling for Jisung. The older male just laughed and walked over to the fridge after he basked in the confused look on his face. Jisung followed along and sat at one of the barstools at the counter as he muttered a little curse under his breath. 

Kun rummaged through the shelves with a chuckle. “I heard that. Do you want anything? We have water, apple juice, and milk. In that order of abundance.” 

“No, I’m good.” Jisung replied. He let his eyes travel around the kitchen of the house. It had been awhile since he’d been in Jaemin’s kitchen. For as much as he had visited Jaemin’s in the summer, he never really took the time to look at everything. They were always occupied with other things, all of which meant they were pent up in Jaemin’s room or crashed on the living room couch. 

“Suit yourself.” Kun mused as he pulled out the jug of apple juice. He grabbed a cup and started to pour himself a glass. 

“Uh… Kun?” Jisung muttered as he squinted his eyes and looked into the corner of the room.

“Hm?” 

Jisung pointed a finger. “...What happened to the broom?” 

Kun stopped pouring the juice at that. An awkward laugh bubbled out of him instantly. “Broom? What broom? We have a broom?” He sputtered. His followed Jisung’s gaze and point to the broom, burnt bristles on full display as it was sloppily shoved into a trash bag in the corner of the room. 

“Oh, that broom.” 

Jisung raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Haha, that’s-.. That’s funny… Uh.. Ha..” Kun’s voice trailed off, though the awkward smile on his lips lingered uncomfortably. He looked like a kid who had just gotten caught sneaking in through the window late at night after being out at a party and, in spite of all of the obvious signs, continued to lie about it.

“...Are you okay.” 

Kun gave him a smile as he lifted his glass. “I’m.. I’m grand. Fantastic. Doing- Doing great.” He flashed a thumbs up and then took a sip of his apple juice with closed eyes as if he couldn’t see Jisung then he hadn’t actually been called out. 

Chenle patted down the steps shortly after, Jaemin on his heels. They walked into the kitchen together side by side, big smiles stretched across their faces as they conversed about who knows what. Jisung slid off of the barstool the second they noticed him and their conversation cut. 

“Jisung, hey.” Jaemin waved. 

“Hey. Chenle, are you ready to go?” 

The boy nodded. “Yeah, I’m ready.” 

“Where’re you guys going?” Jaemin inquired with a tilt of his head. 

Jisung gave Chenle a look that screamed at him to keep his mouth shut, but Chenle didn’t seem to get the memo, his smile never faltering as he proudly said “Susan’s!” big and loud.

Jaemin lit up at the word and his smile only seemed to grow. “Ooh, Susan’s sounds really good right now. Can I come?” 

“Ye-” 

“ _No_.” Jisung interrupted quickly. “No, you can’t come with us.” 

“Why not?” Jaemin frowned. A brow furrowed and he looked at the two of them with an expression somewhere between hurt, anger, or betrayal as he searched for an answer among their faces, smile dropped in an instant. Chenle opened his mouth to speak, but he really didn’t have an excuse. How do you explain to someone that you're going to a secret meeting about them? 

It was then that Jisung said something he would probably regret later.

He didn’t even know why he said it or how it slipped out before he even filtered the consequences for what he said, but he blurted it out nonetheless. His tongue rolled the words off as if it were made to say them, loud, proud, and hastily filled with false confidence.

“Because it’s a date!” 

Chenle’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped at the line. He looked as shocked as Jisung felt that the words were spoken and _he_ was the one that said them. 

“Oh.” Jaemin said. He looked between the two of them, the gears in his head visibly turning. “ _O h_.”

Jisung awkwardly smiled, reciprocated by Chenle. They both looked at Jaemin as Jaemin looked between them both. If he was looking to expose them for lying, he certainly wouldn't have had to look far beyond the mutual awkward and shock wrote across both of their faces. They were both terrible liars, the art something that had never fit well on their of their tongues. 

When he was satisfied, a big smile tugged at his lips and he nodded in approval. “Okay, okay, sweet, cool, I’ve got it. I won’t tell anybody.” 

“We’re uh-.. We’re not dating.” Jisung added with haste. “It’s just..” 

“It’s a test date.” Chenle spoke up.

“Yeah," Jisung nodded quickly, "that.” 

“Mhm.. right.” Jaemin smirked with a hum of disbelief. “Well, whatever. Have fun on your date.” 

“Test date.” Kun echoed from the kitchen. 

“Test date.” Jisung affirmed. He took a little step back towards the door and gestured for Chenle to follow him. 

“Oh-! ... I’ll be back in a little bit!” Chenle told the two of them as he did just that, quick to meet his side and slip out of the door into the freedom and the escape of the awkward.

Jisung waved at both of them as he followed. 

He tried to ignore the burn of Jaemin’s gaze as the two of them snuck out of the house, grin spread wide and knowingly in the knowledge of a false truth. He always had the same smug look when he discovered a big secret, eyebrows raised proudly and lips turned up with narrow eyes. He was the definition of the shit eating grin, and sometimes it was obnoxious how one look could say so much. From that moment on, Jisung knew he was going to have to pretend as though he and Chenle had gone on a fake date. 

He also tried to ignore the little voice in the back of his head that unexplainably wished it wasn’t just fake. 


	7. Don't Mind the Grease

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry it took me so long to update. There also might be some typos and weird phrasing because I wrote this at 3 am and I am delirious so I'll review it and edit more tomorrow/later today because WOOOO a bitch is tired. I really just want to throw an update up because lord knows I've been sleeping on this fic for like... Almost a damn month. These past few weeks have been extremely busy finishing up freshman year… Finals have literally been the biggest killers ooF. I’ve had little to no time for writing and this update was something I’ve been trying to bust out for at least a week now that I have more time. Fortunately, summer starts for me on June 5th and that means my weekly updates will be guaranteed and might even double up to twice a week every once and awhile! Thank you all so much for sticking with me and this story and I hope you enjoy this chapter! Also, you can find updates about when I upload and my writing progress on my fan-author Tumblr, Thewritingwolverine

“It’s a date, huh?” was the first thing that Chenle said when they were out of the house. They hadn’t even got ten feet away and it was already being thrown right back into Jisung’s face that he was a complete and utter dumbass.

Jisung flustered and spat out a defensive “Hey, listen—” that Chenle cut off with laughter before he could continue or justify himself. It didn’t take long for Jisung to fall into step next to him, cheeks flushed from the sheer embarrassment of the situation. He regretted it the second that he had said it and it didn’t help that Chenle decided to tease him about it… Regardless of the intention behind doing so. He wasn’t the type to get bothered by things, especially when it came to his friends within Dream, but there was something about Chenle making fun of his date excuse that stung.

“I’m kidding,” Chenle reassured lightly as he nudged Jisung and leaned forward to catch his eye. “It’s fine. It was my fault anyway. I shouldn’t have said anything, huh?”

“Yeah. Definitely.” Jisung snickered, though his pride still throbbed from the unexplainable fluster in his chest. “Rule number one about a secret mission: It needs to stay secret.” 

“Secret.”

“Yup. You’ve got it.”

“Secret mission.” Chenle smiled brightly. He nodded to himself, presumably in approval of the title ”I love that. It's like we’re in an action movie.”

“Yes, an action movie where we try to get Jaemin and Jeno some action.” Jisung sneered. He meant it romantically, of course. While they were all teenagers who made memes about mature topics and joked around with one another, they were all, for the majority of the group, minors. It was illegal to do anything like that, especially considering they all had more important things to worry about aside from getting frisky; Their careers, for example. Besides, that type of stuff wasn’t what made a relationship, in Jisung’s mind... Relationships were supposed to be based off of feeling genuinely connected with someone. One should connect and learn to love somebody’s mind before they can even begin to love their body. And Jisung, like the rest of Dream, knew better than anyone that he didn’t want to do anything like that any time soon. Not until he was positive he was in love, he was old enough, and he was one hundred and fifty million percent ready for that step. Besides, he wasn’t even looking for love; He was still in high school. He didn’t need to worry about anything aside from dance, schoolwork, and helping his friends get together… and maybe, just maybe, Chenle’s adorable little smile every once in awhile. 

The entire walk down to Susan’s was filled with passive conversation that Jisung was half listening to and half staring at Chenle throughout. It was nice the way that he inquired about everything under the sun; He asked about the buildings, the sidewalk, the trees— minimum as they were—Jisung’s favorite places, and more. He answered easily, but his mind was far too focused on other things to really engage the conversation. He tried his best, but the confused cluster of emotions he had felt because of the damn excuse had really gotten him thinking. 

Chenle was… different. While he’d only known him for a little while, there was just this energy that Jisung was addicted to. It was the type of addiction that kept you coming back for more or kept you up at night just thinking about when you’d get your next fix. Chenle… Well, he was just so easy to talk to and easy to be around. His personality was light and comfortable, the type of person that you would be proud to call your friend. Boyfriend, even. Everything about who Jisung had learned him to be up until that point made him out to be strangely perfect, and he was easy on the eyes to top everything off.

He wondered vaguely as the two of them walked if that was the way that Jeno felt when he looked at Jaemin: Smitten beyond explanation about everything he did and everything he didn’t do. 

The weird thing to Jisung was that he had just met Chenle. He didn’t want to say he had a crush, no, that would’ve been absolutely ridiculous. There was no way that he could already have developed a crush on someone he had met literally a week prior… Right? 

He didn’t have all of the time in the world to think about it since before he even realized it he was pulling open the glass door to the diner, Chenle following him in.

The rest of the Operation Nomin crew sat at the table already, Donghyuck busy in a conversation with Renjun that involved erratic gesticulations and an annoyed frown when he apparently didn’t get the reference that was being made. Mark sat with a sweet smile as he watched the two of them, laughing softly as he fell back into the chair. Jisung and Chenle walked right over. He’d have to reserve his internal conflicts for another time. 

Mark was the first one to notice them and he opened his mouth, presumably to greet him, but out came Donghyuck’s voice as he spoke loudly in response to something from the current conversation he was having with Renjun.

“I’m serious!” He exclaimed. “You’d never think about it like that, but it is totally possible.”

“Totally possible.” Renjun echoed. He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “I don’t believe it for a second.”

“What’s going on?” Jisung asked as he stole a fry from Mark’s plate. Mark eyed him but didn’t call him out for it.

“They’re--”

“We’re making bets.” Donghyuck interjected. “I think that Jaemin will be the first one to make the move to kiss him.”

“I think he’s crazy.” Renjun frowned. Donghyuck rolled his eyes and leaned back into the chair as he folded his arms across his chest. “I mean, come on. Give Jeno some credit.”

“I’ll give that boy credit when he can show me confidence aside from just on Fortnite. And besides,” Hyuck continued with a sly grin from his reclined position, “You’ve never seen Jaemin at his finest. I taught him everything he knows.”

Jisung and Mark exchanged a glance with one another. While Jisung wasn’t a part of the group when it had happened, everyone in Dream knew the story of Jaemin’s first kiss. He had met Donghyuck at a party in the summer before school had started and had kissed him on the porch in the dark. He claimed to that very day that he thought Donghyuck was this girl he had a crush on, but, after accepting his gay nature not that long ago, he finally seemed to admit, to not only everyone else but rather himself, that he really had fallen for Donghyuck in the few interactions they’d had during the night. He would never date him, that he yelled about fifty times a day at any given time it was brought up. But he loved the appeal of a hot guy he’d probably never see again. Little did he know how life would work out. 

“Okay, so. Say _I_ win,” Renjun continued, “What’s in it for me?”

“Isn’t the satisfaction of being right enough for you?”

“Of course not.”

Donghyuck rolled his eyes and huffed. “Of course not.”

Renjun snickered and sipped on his drink. He flashed Jisung a smile with the straw between his teeth and raised his eyebrows.

“Okay, put it this way,” Donghyuck continued as he sat up straight. “If you win, not only do you get the satisfaction of saying that you won the bet, but I’ll give you an IOU: An absolute free pass to do ask whatever you want, something you need from me, that type of stuff. Sound good?”

“That’s actually a really good idea.” Mark sneered. “I mean, having Donghyuck on a leash can be useful.”

Donghyuck poked his tongue out at him and reached over to punch him on the arm. Mark shuffled under the table, presumably to kick him.

Renjun tapped his fingers against the table in thought. He considered the offer for a moment and then he broke into a smile with his conclusion. “I’ll take it.”

“Good because that’s exactly what I want from you when _I_ win.” Donghyuck replied. A smug smile tugged at his lips and he leaned back in the chair. Renjun scoffed incredulously and echoed the word “when” with a shake of his head.

“Okay, we’re all here now.” Jisung spoke up. “So, what was this amazing idea that you had that required us all to get here in person?”

The junior hummed at the question as if he’d just been waiting for someone to ask. His plump lips curled up into a smile as he leaned forward and smacked his hands onto the table. It was much louder than anyone had anticipated it to be, their entire table jumping. People at the tables around them swiveled to look in the direction of the loud smack and Donghyuck looked around as well to meet their concerned and annoyed faces, guilty.

“Jesus…” Jisung muttered softly. “You nearly broke the damn wood.”

“Uh. He probably did.” Renjun added.

“Yo, I can’t get kicked out of Susan’s,” Donghyuck sputtered, “that wouldn’t be good at all.”

As if on cue, due to the universe and its apparent infatuation with proving him wrong, there was a loud “Lee Donghyuck!” that came from a voice behind the counter. It was none other than Johnny Seo, everyone’s favorite waiter at the joint. His hair was messily combed back and a white towel draped over his shoulder right above his name tag basically screamed that he was working that day. His usually kind expression was tugged into a displeased one as his lips tugged down into a frown. “Stop scaring the customers, dude!”

“Sorry, Johnny.” Donghyuck replied. Johnny gave a warning look at them then snickered in adoration as he pulled the towel off of his shoulder and started to wipe down the countertop. 

All attention was back onto Donghyuck and his unspoken “genius” idea.

“Seriously, can you tell us already. The suspense is killing me.”

“Shh, don’t pressure me you oaf.” The shuffle under the table returned, this time from Donghyuck’s side.

“ _Ow._.” Mark grumbled. “What the hell are your shoes made out of?”

“My idea,” Donghyuck began as he sat up straight, disregarding Mark’s question, “is that we should have a party.”

“Didn’t we literally just do that.”

Donghyuck pointed a finger at him. “You didn’t let me finish.”

“Yeah, and I’m not going to.” Mark pouted. “That’s literally the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard come from your mouth.” Maybe it was just because he was upset he had been kicked, but he didn’t seem to be in the mood to deal with any shit.

Donghyuck swiveled towards him and narrowed his eyes. The finger returned, pointed straight at the Canadian-gone-Korean student. He reached out and poked him right on the arm. “My ideas are _never_ dumb you fu-”

“Okay, can we not?” Renjun spoke up. “Seriously, come on. We all have different opinions. Who knows what will work? One thing might work just fine and then another might not work at all?”

Donghyuck turned back to Renjun quickly, his eyes narrowed in offense. “My ideas would’ve worked just fine? I can’t stand him thinking that he knows everything when he really has no idea what he’s talking about!”

“ _I_ have no idea what I’m talking about?" Mark scoffed. “Yeah. Right.”

Their arguments were the things that made Jisung, and everyone, arguably, question things. As in, the state of their relationship.

While Jaemin and Jisung loved to support the idea that Donghyuck and Mark were really just a dysfunctional couple, there were times where their arguments seemed to be rooted more in genuine hatred than in passion for the actual topic responsible for the dispute. Some days, they seemed far deeper than just arguments over who changed the channel or who truly looked the best in that t-shirt. It was these, the arguments, that threw off suspicions of their dating, and, perhaps, maybe that’s why they never took up the label. They were both far too hot-headed when it came to one another for their conflict to be false.

As was the case with this situation.

“Do you want me to fight you? Seriously, I will. Right here, right now.”

“I’m not going to fight you.” Mark said. He blinked at him, face blank as he used all of his composure to not attack him, Jisung assumed. He and Chenle looked to each of them as the argument dragged on, eyes bouncing in spectation like they were watching a ping-pong match.

“Yeah, because you know that you’d lose.”

“No, because that idea is dumber than the idea we throw a party.”

“Son of a-”

Johnny smacked his hands onto their table then.

Loudly.

Nobody had noticed him walk over, but there he was, white shirt, name tag, and all. He looked pissed off, which was a rare feat for him. If he had been annoyed earlier at the warning, he certainly was angry now. He was usually known as one of the happiest people the group knew, but the look on his face then was just flat out scary. 

“Can you guys stop arguing?” He grumbled. His tone hinted that there was no room for justification or proving of their point from either party involved and his eyebrows were tugged together furiously. “Seriously, you’re going to scare the customers away.”

“Sorry.” Donghyuck muttered begrudgingly. It didn’t take a genius to guess that he probably didn’t mean it. If anything, Donghyuck just seemed annoyed that he had been cut off before he was able to throw another snide remark Mark’s way. Beside him, Mark tilted his head back and looked up at the ceiling with a huff. 

“What are you even arguing about? And where are the other tw-..” Johnny paused when he noticed Chenle next to Jisung. He felt silent, eyes on the mysterious boy sat in Lucas’s old spot at the table. Curious, he looked him up and down in examination, expression no longer harsh and filled with the fury it had just moments prior. Chenle gave him a tiny wave after Johnny’s silence started to grow uncomfortable.

“Damn, now he probably thinks I’m rude!” He whispered to Renjun. He leaned across the table and extended a hand out for Chenle to shake as he pulled on a smile and introduced himself. “Johnny Seo. Don’t mind the burger grease.”

Chenle laughed awkwardly but shook his hand anyways. “Chenle.”

“Sweet. Hey, scoot over.”

The entire left side of the table scooted down a seat so that Johnny could sit with them. While he technically wasn’t supposed to take breaks while on the job, there wasn’t much else he had been doing aside from wiping countertops so it was completely harmless. He looked around once he was situated and folded his hands on the table. “Now,” He spoke up in all of his greasy-handed glory, “can someone explain this secret meeting and why we’re missing smiles and the polar bear?”

“It’s about them.” Jisung explained.

“About them? What is?”

“You know…” Jisung gestured vaguely. “ _It._ ”

Across the table, Donghyuck rolled his eyes. “Very specific, Jisung.” 

“Hey.” Johnny pointed a finger at him. “No more words from you. Eat your food you overgrown toddler.” He slid the white plate closer to Donghyuck who looked at him in disgust, then down at the contents on the plate. The others around the table exchanged a look of shock as Johnny turned his attention back to Jisung.

“Well… I mean, we’re planning to get them together.” He shrugged.

Johnny heaved a loud sigh of relief as he leaned against Renjun, cheek squishing against his shoulder. It looked uncomfortable in all honesty considering that Johnny was a giant and he had to lean down a fair amount to even reach him. “Oh thank _god_. I thought it would never happen.”

“Yeah, it hasn’t yet and it won’t if we don’t get involved.” Mark nodded. “We need help formulating a good starter plan.”

“Well, what’ve you got? Aside from what started the argument.”

“Our ideas can fit on a hand.” Renjun held up his fist and started to count off on his fingers, tapping each as he included it to represent the presented idea. “Drop hints, manage to get them at the same location, and try to get them alone together as much as possible.”

“Yup,” Mark nodded. “That’s about it.”

Johnny furrowed a brow. “I don’t get it, what’s bad about any of those ideas?”

“We have no idea where to start.” Chenle sighed. 

Johnny didn’t seem the least bit affected by this news. He nodded along for a moment as he thought up something brilliantly philosophical to say. At the end of his little silence break, he licked his lips and spoke: “I mean, nobody ever knows where to start. The beginning is always the worst. I mean, come on. Just read any book on a high school required reading list. They’re all terrible.”

“Oh, you truly have a way with words.” Donghyuck clapped.

“Um. No, Romeo and Juliet wasn’t trash.” Renjun argued.

Johnny nodded his head back and forth and made an “ehhh” of contradiction. “I mean, it depends on who you ask.” Renjun’s face wrinkled up in offense. How dare Johnny insult his Shakespearean daddy.

“Hey, Johnny? Do you have any ideas or what? We’re coming up dry here.” 

Johnny looked up at the ceiling for a moment in thought. His hand reached up, presumably to stroke the imaginary beard he had, and he leaned back into the chair to contemplate whatever it was he had going on up there. Johnny was a special breed of person. He was the type of person you just let do their own thing and smacked with “you’re doing amazing sweetie” vines, not the type you interrupted when he was thinking. It was a common theme for him to continuously be thinking about something to say. The table exchanged looks as they waited for their pal to finish buffering.

Then, Johnny came back to life with a snap of his fingers and a loud “I’ve got it!” that most certainly was louder than he intended it to be. He shifted forward in his seat and leaned over the table to get closer to everyone, the excitement, and pride for his unspoken idea written all over his face before he even started to discuss the terms of it. The boys leaned forward, too, eager to hear what it was Johnny’s mind concocted.

“Alright, so here’s the deal.” Johnny started. “Jeno and Jaemin are both oblivious as hell, right?”

“Right.” 

“And they’ve never said they like each other to one another’s faces directly?”

“Right.” Mark and Hyuck said in unison. Donghyuck glared at him, appalled at the audacity that Mark would even DARE say the word that he wanted to. Johnny, unphased, continued.

“Then how about this: Let’s set them up on a date. We can just make it seem like you guys are trying to go out to eat with each other, you know? And then instead of you showing up, it’s Jeno or Jaemin in their place thinking that they’re going to meet the other person.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea…” Jisung mumbled.

“Of course not,” Johnny beamed with a grin. “I came up with it.”

“You sound like Donghyuck.” Chenle remarked with a snicker.

“Well…” Jisung pondered aloud. “What events are coming up that call for a nice dinner?” He could think of a few, but none of them were by any means close. There was the dance banquet, but that wasn’t until their season was finished. There was the school dance, but that wasn’t for another month. There were club ordeals, but there would be no way to sneak someone into that if they weren’t a member. Jisung highly doubted he could convince Jeno to join any clubs and Jaemin would probably make too many friends that he would be way too distracted. 

“Nothing. We don’t need one. We can make our own.”

The idea was just crazy enough to work. _Make_ their own event. Some people had galas, some people had fancy feasts, and they, a group of teenagers with high aspirations, had greasy hamburgers and skinny jeans. 

Needless to say, everyone agreed.

* * *

“I need you to do me a favor.” Jisung said. It was Monday morning and he and Jeno were walking down the hall together before they split into their respective homerooms. They picked up the habit of walking side by side in the morning because their homerooms were in the same direction but on different floors. He used to walk with Jaemin and Renjun, but everyone else had somehow managed to have ended up with their first places of gathering for the day being as far away as possible.

“What is it?” Jeno asked without missing a beat.

“I need someone to come with me. There’s this big dinner event that’s going on for my family and I really don’t want to sit through it alone.” Jisung explained. He hoped that it didn’t sound too fake or sketchy considering prior to that day that he had never invited Jeno to do something one-on-one aside from maybe to hang out after dance.

Jeno raised an eyebrow at him, apprehensive. “And you chose _me_? Me, of all of our friends.”

“I mean, yeah.” Jisung shrugged. ` _Shoot_. He adjusted his book bag straps and silently prayed that Jeno didn’t call him out on how ridiculous it sounded. “I just feel like we need to hang out more, you know.”

“We… See each other for like two hours after school at dance every night.”

“Okay, fine. You caught me.” Jisung sighed. “I really just think that you’re the only one of Dream that my parents will like.”

Jeno flushed when he heard that, his lips curled into a tiny, unsure smile. “Seriously?” 

The younger of the two nodded quickly. “Yeah, I mean. Mark’s fine, but I think that they’ll like you more. You’ve just got…” He trailed off and then gestured with his hand up and down. Really, there wasn’t anything Lee Jeno didn’t have. He was quite the catch, if Jisung were to be honest with himself. Not his type, but definitely quite a few people’s ideal man. One of those people being Jaemin. “You’ve got yourself.”

If there was one thing nobody told you about Lee Jeno but was totally true was that he was an all around sweetheart. He was still a guy, but he was more of a romantic than he’d ever let on. He was also really shy and nervous below all of his stress and “cool” demeanor. And if there was one thing that made him soft, it was being acknowledged. Everyone close to him knew it, as much as Jeno tried to hide the way he felt. He loved to feel needed and important and playing to that was just how Jisung intended to get him to agree to go to their set-up. 

They walked in silence for a few more steps as Jeno thought it through. Then, with a sweet smile of finality, nodded. “Of course. I’ll go. Just text me where to go and when.”

Jisung returned the smile and assured him that he would. Then they reached the steps and went their separate ways, Jisung pulling out his phone and quickly sending a text to the group: “Mission accomplished.” as he tapped up the steps.

* * *

Getting Jaemin to agree wasn’t quite as inexpensive.

Unfortunately for him, Chenle was tasked with this one.

“It’ll be a good chance for you to show what you can do!” Renjun reassured him. “You live with him. I’m sure you can think of something.”

And think of something he did. 

After daydreaming through his classes the entire day and conversing with Jisung under his breath in English, he finally did in fact come up with something.

They had just gotten home after walking and Jaemin complained about the insane amount of homework he already had for just the first week of school the entire time. He was only cut off when they got in the house and saw Kun in the kitchen.

“Oh no,” He breathed, “you and kitchens are never a good mix.”

Kun shook his hands and spoke quickly. “No, no, no! I didn’t burn anything this time!” 

The boys exchanged a doubtful look and then turned their gazes back to Kun. The oldest shuffled across the counter and grabbed a pan, then held it up so that they could see what was inside. 

“Brownies!” He exclaimed proudly. Inside of the pan was a large cube of brown dusted over with white powder. He waved them over happily and the two boys obliged, wiggling onto the barstools as Kun pulled out plates.

“We’re not going to get food poisoning, right?” Jaemin chided mildly.

“I mean, I hope not.” Kun mused. “Then your parents would kick me out.” 

“True.”

As Kun started to cut out little squares for them eat to eat, Chenle saw his opportunity. 

“Hey, Jae,” He swiveled in the barstool to face him, “I have a question.”

Jaemin looked over at him with interest, a tiny little head tilt accompanying the glance.“Yeah, shoot.” 

“What’s your favorite fancy restaurant?” 

If Jaemin thought it was a weird question, he didn’t say it. “Easy, Mauve. It’s really expensive, but my parents take me there once a year for my birthday. The food is literally amazing, I love it.” Jaemin sighed dreamily as he spoke about it, eyes glazed over with the euphoric nostalgia of chocolate cakes and pastries. 

“Well…” Chenle trailed. There was only one way he had pictured continuing this conversation and it was all dependant on the success of the next line.If that didn’t work, he didn’t know how he was going to convince him.“Since I’m going back to China at the end of the year, do you think we could maybe go there together?” 

Jaemin nearly choked on his own air and Chenle swore he lost all of his confidence in a millisecond.  
“ _What?_ ” He exclaimed. “Dude, no way, it’s super costly.”

“I saved a lot of money for my stay here!” Chenle continued quickly. “I’ll pay for both of us. And the reservations. Everything. Can you just… come with me?”

“I mean, _yeah_ , I’m not going to turn down free cake, but…” Jaemin pouted at him and tipped his head again. “Are you sure? I’d hate for a lot of money to get thrown on just one night.”

“It’ll be fine.” Chenle reassured. “Please just say yes?”

Jaemin tapped his fingers together as he thought it through, though it really didn’t require as much thought as he tried to make it seem. After a moment, Chenle watched as Jaemin’s face lit up with excitement for the even suggested and his eyes glittered.

“Alright, alright, fine. We can go out to Mauve together. When do you want to go?”

Chenle hesitated. 

They hadn’t discussed the date in the group chat.

“Tomorrow?” He blurted. He winced at himself the second he heard it leave his lips. It was just about the dumbest thing he could’ve said. Out of all of the things he could’ve screwed up in the situation, he messed up the one that impacted the entire course of the plan the most: The actual execution of the plan. Oh, boy. Man was he going to hear it from the group if it didn’t work out. How could he have _not_ known the date that this setup was supposed to go down? Was it ever mentioned? Why the hell did his mind think that tomorrow would ever be a remotely good suggestion?! He had a terrible habit of just word vomiting whenever Jaemin was around or involved in a lie. 

Jaemin shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Mauve, you, me, some really good cake, tomorrow.”

Chenle nodded and smiled awkwardly, then grabbed his brownie from the plate before Kun could set it down. He shoved it into his mouth before he could say anything else to royally screw everyone over.


End file.
